Last month, my team and I gathered at the PRSA Puget Sound Summit Awards to celebrate our work with Talking Rain Beverage Company and K9s For Warriors, a nonprofit that trains shelter dogs to become service dogs for U.S. veterans struggling with PTSD, anxiety and other mental health challenges –saving lives “at both ends of the leash.”  

Over the last three years, we’ve helped Talking Rain raise awareness of the importance of service dogs for veterans struggling with “invisible wounds.” Beyond the media coverage, we’ve helped integrate Talking Rain’s charitable partnerships within every level of their stakeholder engagement strategy.  

That’s part of what makes this program so compelling. 

How to maximize charitable giving programs 

Many companies give to charity. Writing a check is the easy part.  

Fewer set out to build something together with their charitable partners that holds meaning for their stakeholders – in Talking Rain’s case, their consumers, employees, and retail and distribution partners. And the media want to cover it! 

Ensuring that causes matter to the people who matter to your business takes time and creativity. For Talking Rain, building those connections means selecting partners that its consumers are inspired by, that employees want to spend their precious volunteer hours supporting and that industry partners are excited to support.   

Talking Rain’s approach offers a blueprint for any business trying to make its charitable giving count for more than just good PR.  

Successful charitable partners come up with great campaigns together 

Talking Rain’s partnership with K9s For Warriors grew through careful planning, as well as by staying open to new ideas.  

When K9s For Warriors pitched a late-breaking plan to present a rescue pup named Rocky as a “U.S. presidential candidate” for the 2024 race to the White House, we said, “Tell us more!”  

Rocky’s campaign raised awareness of veteran needs while also providing  an ideal training environment for a future service animal. Rocky visited Philadelphia and Washington DC, traveling on trains, planes and automobiles to meet with lawmakers and the public in support of the needs of shelter animals and U.S. veterans.  

The campaign earned media coverage for both organizations and gave Talking Rain’s employees and industry partners a cause to rally around, literally – they even made campaign buttons and put up yard signs.  

Eventually, Rocky took his paws out of the race to become a Battle Buddy to a U.S. veteran named Mark. Together, their story continues to inspire Talking Rain employees, who welcomed Mark and Rocky to the all-company meeting in Preston, Washington, where the duo was greeted like celebrities on the stage.  

None of this was in the original plan. It worked because Talking Rain treated K9s For Warriors as a true partner with great ideas of their own, not as a cause to manage from the top down.  

Growing the Pack 

As the ties between Talking Rain and K9s For Warriors grew, in 2025 the team launched a new 6-pack format of the company’s signature Sparkling Ice drinks branded with the K9s For Warriors logo. Then, last year for Military Appreciation Month, Talking Rain launched 12-packs of Sparkling Ice beverage with their charitable partners’ logo.  

Inspired by the partnership, at this point a third partner joined the pack. A key account for Talking Rain decided to jointly sponsor the training of a K9s For Warriors service dog, whom they named Iggy.   

When Iggy and his trainer visited the retail partner’s headquarters and a local store in September last year, we made sure that local media understood both that Sparkling Ice and the retailer had co-sponsored Iggy’s training through K9s For Warriors, and that there was an educational component to this effort, namely service dog etiquette.  

Grocery stores and other busy locations can trigger PTSD symptoms for veterans, and it’s important for people to understand what’s appropriate when they encounter people with service dogs in public. 

The campaign earned more than 200,000 impressions along with coverage from trade and regional outlets. More importantly, it kept the storytelling authentic and gave shoppers something more than a sponsorship announcement.  

Quick review 

The lesson here isn’t that every company needs a dog running for president. It’s that partnerships built for stakeholders tend to last longer and become a line item everybody leaps to defend when budgets tighten. 

A few things worth borrowing from Talking Rain’s approach: 

• Understand what will make the partnership valuable to every stakeholder 

• Leave room in the plan for your partner’s ideas  

• Let every partner tell the story in their own voice 

Corporate giving that stops at the checkbook rarely survives the next round of budget cuts. Giving strategies that are woven into the fabric of stakeholder experience help build brands that are authentic and meaningful to everyone around them.