Paul Skinner, a global marketer specializing in sustainable innovation, has been recognised as one of the “leading social entrepreneurs in the UK” by Nexters (the Big Society programme backed by the Cabinet Office).

This recognition came five months after the launch of his venture Pimp My Cause, an online collaborative platform bringing together professional marketers with causes (charities, social ventures, citizen groups, etc), to whom they can donate not cash but rather their talent and expertise.

Marketers don’t always get a great press. Blamed for everything from murky spin to climate change, marketers may be among the most under-rated groups in society. Because marketers actually play a fundamental role in shaping our shared future. And an initiative created by social entrepreneur Paul Skinner is making it easier than ever before for marketers to apply their talent to making that future a good one.

Talking to organizations like UnLtd and Volunteering England, it became clear to Paul that while there are great programmes in the UK and around the world to deliver pro bono legal services, there was an urgent need for one to deliver pro bono marketing support on a similar scale and which would also be accessible to individual marketers. The Pimp my Cause platform does just that: it makes it quicker and easier for marketers across all specialties to find the right opportunities for them.

Structurally, the core of the site works rather like online dating, in that you can search and browse listings of profiles to find your own best matches – in terms of the marketing skills you need for your cause or the type of cause you want to support as a marketer. The platform also facilitates knowledge-sharing, with completed case studies, interviews with top marketers from around the world, a collaborative forum contributing fresh ideas to member causes and a twitter help desk.

Paul launched the project having seen a particularly heightened relevance to pro bono marketing in recent years:

“While we are doing our best to build a resilient system, capable of supporting some great cause marketing, the real impact is achieved by our members.

We are aware of around 50 streams of marketing work in progress through Pimp My Cause at any one time, and the number is growing month by month. We feel incredibly inspired by the quality and ambition of our now 250+ member causes, and greatly impressed by the calibre and commitment of our 400 marketers.”

A notable case is European Disaster Volunteers (an innovative charity that provides long term education to aid recovery in disaster zones), which is currently putting children through primary school in Haiti. With rapid growth and ambitious programmes in place, EDV’s deputy director of operations Emma Taylor needed to create a memorable holiday appeal on a very tight budget.

Emma expained, "after being picked out by Damian Ryan in a recent Pimp My Cause expert interview, we were contacted by Roberta Fusco (a Pimp My Cause marketing member). She has come on board not only critiquing copy and providing general advice about our Holiday Appeal, but teaching us about Google Analytics, tracking open rates based on subject lines, and all sorts of tid-bits that she’s accumulated during her years as a professional in the field.

This year, our Holiday Appeal won’t be as fancy as the campaigns that will be launched in the coming weeks by multi-million dollar NGOs, but with Roberta’s help, our campaign will more than do justice to the 100 children we’re trying to put through primary school, the students in our english class, and all the volunteers who have given up their holidays to join us in Haiti. And, thanks to Roberta’s willingness to share her knowledge, the work she’s putting in today will strengthen all of our future communications.

Fundamentally, that is the joy of working with a volunteer who is truly a professional in their field. What they deliver is more than just a campaign. The information they provide builds the capacity of small charities like EDV to fundraise and engage users more effectively. Those skills translate into more funds, and those funds change lives.”

As you reflect on the year ahead and consider the impact you want to make on the world – why not consider contributing your talent and ideas to the cause of your choice on Pimp My Cause?