An Audience Interpretation of Corporate Communication in a Cause-Related Corporate Outreach Event: The Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk

Heidi Hatfield Edwards ^ Peggy j. Kreshel

2008
BY THE ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION

Heidi Hatfield Edwards is an associate professor of communication at the Florida Institute of Technology. Peggy J. Kreshel is an associate professor of advertising at the University of Georgia. The authors wish to thank the study participants for sharing their stories and experiences, the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions, and the professors and colleagues who provided guidance and encouragement throughout this project.

Abstract
Drawing upon a cultural studies perspective, this study investigates the audience role in shaping corporate involvement in social issues - identified as cause-related corporate outreach. We assert that, more than consumer, voter, or passive receptor of corporate messages, the audience is an active participant in the communication process. This case study of the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, one of the most visihle fitness-based fundraising events, examines the meaning individual participants construct during their involvement in the event. The study provides a context in which public relations practitioners and scholars alike can better understand the role corporate communication plays in defining and preserving community and social values. This understanding can help corporations build communication that resonates with specific publics and is more beneficial to all involved. Tbe researcb also extends public relations theory. It develops a cultural understanding ofthe growing phenomenon of corporate involvement in social issues as it applies to a public's involvement, shifting the traditional public relations research focus from an effects-based approach to one informed by cultural studies. Emphasizing the active role of the audience, the study investigates the experiential relationships of that public as it engages in a cause-related, corporate-sponsored fundraising event. Additionally, this study is methodologically expansive. It uses a variety of qualitative data-collection methods, including in-depth interviews, audio journals kept by walkers, participant observation, and post-walk focus groups to develop an audience-centered understanding of the walk experience and draw implications for public relations research and practice.

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31-year-old mother of two was recently diagnosed with hreast cancer. In the next few months she will have chemotherapy treatments, undergo a radical mastectomy, begin radiation therapy, and prepare to participate in a 3-day walk to raise money to fight the disease. Around the country, thousands like her will "give" to a cause as individuals, joining forces with other individuals, organizations, private foundations, and corporations not only to fight disease, but to work for a hetter environment, improve education, provide relief in times of natural disasters and terrorist attacks, to make a difference in the world in countless ways. Perhaps prompted hy personal circumstances or interests, organizational objectives, or corporate strategies, these efforts together form the societal story, the shared folklore and values that frame each social issue. In contemporary fundraising efforts, the role of corporations in framing social issues and contributing to social causes has hecome at once more visible and more complicated. Yet, the impact of that participation on the social narrative has been largely unexplored. This research seeks to better understand the implications of corporate involvement in social issues as it relates to those who join the fray as individuals. It is a case study of how an audience actively negotiates the meaning of the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, an event in which a corporation goes beyond the bounds of its everyday activities and inserts its voice in a social issue.

Introduction: "Entrepreneurial Spirit Meets the Philanthropical"

Successful entrepreneurs like to contribute to worthy causes, whether the local Kiwanis or a national charity. Their motives can be mixed, of course; they might want to help make a better world, hut polishing their public

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EvEm: THE AVON BKEAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

images doesn't hurt their bottom lines, either. (Olson, 2005, "Entrepreneurial Spirit Meets the Philanthropical") [Clause marketing is the hottest trend in fundraising for the perennially cash-short nonprofit world. It is also an increasingly popular way for corporations to hitch their reputations to do-good organizations. (Salmon & Sun, 2002) While U.S. corporations have long heen involved in charitable activities, more recently, the degree of charitable giving has been increasing steadily. In an annual survey of corporate giving, industry researchers found that America's largest corporations contributed $9.8 billion to causes in the U.S. and abroad in 2005 (Conference Board, 2007). Contributions to U.S. charities alone were $7.8 hillion. Median U.S. contributions increased 14% from 2004, according to Conference Board estimates (Conference Board, 2007), a sustained trend for several years (Conference Board 2004). Reporting on results of its annual survey of corporate charitahle giving, the Conference Board estimated total charitable giving by U.S. companies in 2005 rose to $13.77 billion ("Corporate Contributions Rise Again" January 17, 2007). Once worried that consumers might view them as exploiting a cause for commercial gain, corporations today find that consumers have come to accept, and indeed, even expect corporate involvement in social causes. According to the 2006 Golin Harris Corporate Citizenship Index, "Americans are sending a message to business that good corporate citizenship is a 'must!have', critical to business success in good times and bad" (Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire, 2006). In Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause (2005), Kotier and Lee identify the shift in corporate approach from "giving as an obligation to giving as a strategy" (4) as one of several trends signaling corporate ambitions to "do well hy doing good." Today, cause-related corporate activity, once primarily consisting of monetary or product donations, takes many forms (e.g., event sponsorship, product marketing with a percentage-of-sales donation to a cause, co-branding) and frequently involves a complex web of relationships. Corporate .cause-related programs that include consumer participation first hegan to evolve in the 1980s, and became known as cause-related marketing, or CRM.^ Such programs now play a significant role in corporategiving strategies (Burlingame & Young, 1996; Koch, 1979; Levy, 1999; Varadarajan & Menon, 1988); a 2000 survey found that by the end of the last century at least 85% of corporations and 65% of not-for-profit organizations were found to participate in cause-related marketing (Tillman, 2000), and the trend continues to grow. Today, consumer-based outreach initiatives are diverse; the degree and nature of consumer involvement varies. A consumer-based outreach program might create awareness of a social cause, actively promote the compa-

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ny's support of the cause and identify the consumer as key to keeping that support available (Steckel & Simons, 1992). For example, Coors Brewing Company promoted its involvement in the cause of literacy to consumers through marketing campaigns, stressing the importance of consumer support to its continued outreach (Schreiber & Lenson, 1994). Kentucky Fried Chicken has created The Colonel's Kids, one of the first foundations to name child care as a cause, has run public service announcements related to the cause, and recently opened the first Colonel's Kids Child Care Center in Columbus Junction, Iowa (Cause Marketing Forum, 2005c). Some companies simply ask consumers to buy a product, noting that a percentage of the sale proceeds will go to a particular cause. Actor Paul Newman, sole owner of Newman's Own, a line of all-natural food products ranging from popcorn to salad dressing to lemonade, "donates all his profits and royalties after taxes for educational and charitable purposes" (Newman's Own, 2005). In the case of Newman's Own, this has been a long-term corporate philosophy; other companies engage in short-term promotions. For example. Norm Thompson Outfitters, a producer of outdoor wear, recently began selling a chocolate "condor egg" with proceeds of the sales going to a condor-conservation program at the Oregon Zoo (Buss, 2005). In these instances, the customer does nothing beyond purchasing a product. Another strategy is to create, and ask consumers to buy, a symbol of their support for a cause, somefhing Walker (2004) called "wearable proof ... a visible declaration of concern." Breast cancer's looped pink ribbon is, in the words of one critic, "the now ubiquitous representation of corporatized breast cancer charity and awareness" (King, 2004, p. 485). The Nike/Lance Armstrong "Live Strong" yellow silicone bracelets introduced in 2004 quickly became a "charitable must-have" (Walker, 2004). Other corporate outreach efforts include sponsorship, of fundraising events in which the public participates. Tommy Hilfiger U.S.A. has sponsored "Play For Kicks," a children's soccer tournament to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. A recent issue of Outside Magazine (February 2005) includes an article "Destinations: Adventure Altruism Giving Large" which identifies over 30 "ways to make philanthropy a part of your [adventure] trip." (Cause Marketing Forum, 2005b). Perhaps developing out of earlier walkathons such as the March of Dimes, which began in 1973, "the latest trend in fitness" and fundraising (Sweeney, 2005) is what might be identified as extreme, fitness-based, fundraising events. In these events, charitable foundations link with corporate sponsors to provide endurance training programs for individuals who participate in long-distance bike rides, walks, marathons, etc., to raise money for a cause. Individuals involved in Team in Training, a program organized by the Leukemia and Lymphoma society, have helped raise more than $700 million since 1988 (www.teamintraining.org). The Susan G. Komen Breast Gancer Foundation, which lists some 50 major corporate partners, sponsors Komen's "Race for the Cure," the largest series of 5K runs/fitness walks in the world, with more than 100 races slated per year. Sponsorships cover the cost of the events; participants' registra-

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tion fees support breast cancer initiatives in their area and research funded by the Komen Foundation. Together with participants and sponsors, Komen has raised more than $400 million since its inception in 1982 (Komen Foundation, 2005). In 2003, Komen took over the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, which had been sponsored by Avon since it began in 1998 and had raised millions of dollars for the cause. The increased popularity of physically demanding fundraising events brought with it a new phenomenon: for-profit fundraising businesses that help charitable foundations and corporations produce fundraising events, ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ providing a full range of support including marketing, recruiting and The emergence and popularity of training participants, and complete "extreme" fitness fundraising events orchestration of the actual event. and fundraising marketers/event Perhaps the most visible and controversial of these businesses was coordinators both reflect and con- Pallotta Teamworks. Pallotta struct cultural attitudes about emerged in 1993 with the extreme physical activity and Tanqueray-sponsored California activism. AIDS Ridea 500-mile bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Five years later, Pallotta partnered with Avon to produce the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, in which participants walked 60 miles in three days. In 2002, the company published a catalog to recruit sponsors and participants for twenty-six cause-related events (Pallotta Teamworks, 2001).^ The letter accompanying that catalog from Dan Pallotta, chairman and CEO of Pallotta Teamworks, articulated his vision of what might be accomplished through what Sweeney (2005) has since called "athletic altruism": The world has known all kinds of catalogs. Catalogs for clothes. Catalogs for cars. But never a catalog for compassion. This is the most powerful array of opportunities ever assembled for the average citizen to make a difference in the world. It represents a milestone in the reinvention of citizen activism. (Dan Pallotta, letter, accompanying Pallotta Teamworks catalog, 2001) When Pallotta Teamworks closed in 2002, it was the largest, most visible, for-profit fundraiser, netting more than $222 million for AIDS and breast cancer between 1993 and 2001. More than 124,000 people had participated in Pallotta events (Pallotta Teamworks Record of Impact, 2002). The emergence and popularity of "extreme" fitness fundraising events and fundraising marketers/event coordinators both reflect and construct cultural attitudes about extreme physical activity and activism. Cause-related corporate outreach efforts are not without controversy. Certainly, money raised benefits social causes, but, critics ask, is enough of the money raised going to the cause? (see e.g., Kingston, 2007). Broader

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questions of the impact of what some describe as the corporatization of philanthropy also arise. In commercializing issues, critics ask, aien't corporations exploiting both charities and consumers? (Lieberman, 2001). Critics are particularly outspoken in the case of disease-related efforts (see e.g., Ehrenreich, 2001; King, 2004; Orenstein, 2003), which since the 1990s, have been among the more popular causes with which organizations associate (Conference Board, 2004; see also, Howard, 2001; Polonsky & Wood, 2001; Tillman, 2000)). In recent years, cause-related corporate outreach has become an important public relations activity and a highly visible part of American culture. Companies, striving to be good corporate citizens, undertake increasingly innovative outreach efforts creating ever-more-complex relationships between causes, corporations, sponsors, and donors. For example, recently, rock star and activist, Bono, introduced the Red campaign to benefit the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Joined by other celebrities, perhaps most notably Oprah Winfrey, in promoting the campaign, the project involves joining with "iconic companies who make iconic products," to market Red-themed products. Consumers contribute by buying products ranging from Converse footwear, to GAP clothing to Ipods. A portion of the revenue from the sale of these products will go to the Fund. The campaign is an ambitious one that, according to an Advertising Age writer, "set out to change the cause-marketing model by allowing partners to profit from charity, but also for brands involved" (Frazier, 2007, p.l). The creativity and complexity of these efforts, coupled with the criticism which has become a part of the social narrative, point to the necessity that corporations understand how their efforts fit into a larger social world. This research is a case study ofthe Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, one of the most visible, fitness-based, corporate-sponsored fundraising events. Often grounded in excellence theory (Grunig & Grunig, 1990; see also, Grunig & Grunig, 2002), the bulk of current public relations research tends to focus on the speaker, the message, or effects. By contrast, this study is informed by cultural studies theory. It particularly acknowledges the active experiential role of the audience, examining how individual Walk participants construct the meaning of the event, the breast cancer cause, the corporate sponsor, and their personal involvement in the event. The Walk provides a context in which public relations practitioners and scholars alike can develop a better understanding of the role corporate communication plays in defining and preserving community and social values. This understanding can help corporations create strategic communication that resonates with specific publics and is more beneficial to all involved; it is vital to all corporations, but perhaps even more so to those involved in the nexus of relationships inherent in cause marketing efforts. The section which follows discusses the literature on cause-related corporate outreach in which this study is located.

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT. THE AVON RREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

Literature Review: The Conceptual Sprawl of Corporate Outreach

The cause marketing world is awash in jargonsome of it descriptive, some of it confusing, little of it universally accepted. (Cause Marketing Forum, 2005a) The literature related to cause-related corporate outreach is unwieldy. Corporate outreach efforts in which a company or organization links its name or product to a social issue are often identified as cause-related marketing (CRM). Although widely used, this term fails to reflect the hreadth of corporate activity in social issues. The literature is rife with terms that are similar but have suhtly different meanings, including "lifestyle marketing" (Schreiber & Lenson, 1994), "public purpose partnerships" (Steckel & Simons, 1992), "social marketing, charity marketing, corporate and or strategic philanthropy, social investment, social marketing, responsible marketing, affinity marketing, public purpose marketing, passion marketing, passion branding, cause branding, sponsorship, sales promotion, PR and indeed, simply marketing" (Adkins, 1999, p. 11). The terms, typically a product of authors' attempts to refine the CRM concept to fit their individual needs, simultaneously indicate a broadening of the concept and an increasing specificity to deal with the diversity of activities and approaches. Varadarajan and Menon (1988), in one of the earliest studies of a causerelated marketing program, identify the objectives of cause-related marketing programs as increased sales, enhanced corporate stature, protection against negative publicity, pacification of customers, eased market entry, and increased merchandising activity for the promoted brand. CRM efforts, they suggest, differ from public relations, corporate philanthropy, sales promotion, corporate sponsorship, and other corporate "good deeds," but often blend elements of those activities. Adkins (1999), writing a decade later, advocates corporate involvement in causes, emphasizing the positive impact CRM can have on corporate-consumer relationships. She defines CRM as "a commercial activity by which businesses and charities or causes form a partnership with each other to market an image, product or service for mutual benefit" (p. 11). Adkins's "partnerships" interpretation is neither philanthropy nor altruism, but business relationships, established by both the corporation and the cause to meet their respective objectives improved income and resources for the cause, and brand/image enhancement, public relations, and improved sales for the corporate sponsor. While Adkins (1999) focuses on corporation-consumer relationships, Sagawa and Segal (2000), in Common Interest Common Good, concentrate on organization-cause partnerships. They identify three types of "exchange partnerships" between business and nonprofit organizationsphilanthropic, marketing, and operational. Philanthropic exchanges include traditional philanthropy, in which a company donates to charitable organizations, and

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Strategie philanthropy, in which a company chooses its exchange partner strategically with a focus on a corporate goal. Marketing exchanges include identity building, sponsorship, and cause-related marketing. Operational exchanges include human-resource exchanges and social enterprises, "nonprofit or government entities that operate like a business in how they acquire resources" (p. 155). Typologies such as that suggested by Sagawa and Segal (2000) recognizably are artificial; companies may engage in a variety of exchange partnerships within the same campaign, using philanthropic, marketing, and operational strategies interchangeably within the context of pursuing their corporate goals. Then, too, the definitions of particular activities are ambiguous. For example, Sagawa and Segal (2000) suggest that marketing exchanges can be distinguished from philanthropic exchanges; however, their distinction between marketing exchanges and strategic philanthropy seems less clear. While marketing exchanges explicitly involve a link between a company or product and a charity, strategic philanthropy may not; otherwise they seem to function in the same way. The Cause Marketing Forum (CMF), providing business and nonprofit executives "physical and virtual gathering places to share best practices, network, and celebrate their accomplishments" (Cause Marketing Forum, 2005a), suggests that it is "the idea of a marketing partnership between a business and nonprofit entity" that is central to the definition of cause marketing, also known as cause-related marketing. CMF then goes on to suggest what cause marketing is not: social marketing or corporate philanthropy. In reviewing Kotier and Lee's (2005) Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Cood for Your Company and Your Cause, however, CMF lists Kotier and Lee's six types of social initiatives, identifying three as fitting "squarely" into the focus of CMF: cause promotion, cause-related marketing, and corporate social marketing. Kotier and Lee's other categories include corporate philanthropy, community volunteering, and socially responsible business practices (Cause Marketing Forum, 2005a). Even here, then, the definitions are ambiguous; though social marketing is not cause marketing on the definitions page, it "fits squarely" into the focus of CMF in another section. The conceptual confusion evident in this literature is exacerbated by the multidisciplinary natin-e of research on cause-related corporate outreach. Studies appear in a variety of industry-specific journals, including marketing, philanthropy, advertising, business, and public relations, as well as in the mainstream press. College marketing textbooks are more likely to mention CRM than are public relations texts that rarely use the term, instead including sections on philanthropic activities and event-coordination (see, e.g., Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 1999). If included in a public relations text, the mention is often very brief, such as Seitel's (2001) inclusion of CRM in a chapter on integrated marketing communication.
ExpucATiNG CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH

The definition that most closely describes our approach to cause-relat-

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMIJNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON RREAST CANCEB 3-DAY WALK

ed corporate outreach is Schreiber and Lenson's (1994) explanation of the term "lifestyle marketing." Lifestyle marketing, they note, "is when a company associates itself with the lifestyle, beliefs, institutions, and culture of its target audience" (p. 17). More than simply giving money, lifestyle marketing "shares values. It's an overt demonstration that a company not only gives cash but shares certain attitudes and beliefs with its consumers" (p. 18). A company's strategic choice of issues reflects the values it wishes to share with its constituencies. However, even this label remains an inadequate description of the scope of corporate activities. Corporations don't simply market values; they reach out and interact with their publics. As one industry analyst noted, "It's not about slapping on a logo; marketers really connect with passionate consumers" (Webster, 2005, p. 31). For this study, we use the term "cause-related corporate outreach," defined as the whole of an organization's involvement in social issues, including all outreach efforts from philanthropic giving to cause-related marketing. The wide array of labels, ambiguous definitions, and efforts to categorize CRM speak to both the complexity and diversity of corporate involvement in social issues and the difficulty practitioners and academics have had in providing a conceptual framework within which to pursue and study the phenomenon. Amid these questions of definition and purpose, it is perhaps not surprising that discussions of how to do CRM (i.e., best practices) and how to assess effectiveness of CRM efforts have varied as well. These discussions are reviewed in the section which follows.
CASE STUDIES AND CUIDEUNES: PBESCBIBING SUCCESSFUL OUTBEACH PBOGBAMS

Public relations and marketing practitioners have provided guidelines for developing successful corporate outreach programs. The guidelines, largely derived from case studies of past corporate/non-profit partnership successes (Adkins, 1999; Crimmins & Horn, 1996; Levy, 1999; Pringle & Thompson, 1999; Sagawa & Segal, 2000), are not theoretically driven, nor do the authors make an effort to develop theory about how relationships among corporations, causes, and consumers function. Because authors take different conceptual starting points, the guidelines at which they've arrived differ in focus. Nevertheless, at least three fundamental guidelines regularly emerge. First, the relationship between the brand/company and the cause should "make sense" and should be simplified in order that stakeholders can easily identify that relationship (Sagawa & Segal, 2000). Sagawa and Segal (2000) describe the partnership between Microsoft and the American Library Association. Microsoft donated products that libraries could use, and thus, provided a highly visible service to communities and enhanced corporate brand recognition. Adkins (1999) identifies Avon's Breast Cancer Crusade as a clear instance in which the cause and the company are easily linked, in part because the relationship clearly makes sense - a "company for women" and a "women's issue." Second, management, employees, suppliers, and strategic partners must all be committed to the relationship. Levy (1999) notes that philan-

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thropy should not be a peripheral activity, but must be deeply imbedded in the corporate ethos or culture. Similarly, Pringle and Thompson (1999) suggest that while "cause-related marketing is a commercial activiGiven an increased demand for ty...it can only exist within a culaccountability in all business activtural and social context in which ities, a number of scbolars bave the concept and practice of chariexamined tbe effects (more so tban ty is deeply imbedded" (1999, p. 251). The Timberland Company, tbe effectiveness) of corporate for example, gives its employees involvement in social issues on con40 paid hours a year to volunteer sumer attitudes and bebaviors. with a variety of service organizations; after three years on the job. employees can apply for a "service sabbatical' of up to six months working for a non-profit organization (Cause Marketing Forum, 2005b). Finally, advocates of outreach activities suggest that companies must approach outreach efforts as long-term commitments; company reputations and consumer identification of the company and cause build over time. (Adkins, 1999; Crimmins & Horn, 1996; Levy, 1999; Pringle & Thompson, 1999; Sagawa & Segal, 2000). Kotler'and Lee (2005) note that among the benefits of a long-term commitment is the fact that "those companies who stick with the cause over the years are more likely to be able to own it" (p. 241). Case study discussions and the derivation of guidelines for creating effective programs primarily adopt the perspective of either the corporations or the issues/causes they support, and rarely examine the impact of outreach efforts on consumers. However, a separate stream of research has investigated the "effects" of cause-related corporate outreach on consumer behavior.
CORPORATE OUTREACH EEFECTS: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES

Given an increased demand for accountability in all business activities, a number of scholars have examined the effects (more so than the effectiveness) of corporate involvement in social issues on consumer attitudes and behaviors. Like the studies just discussed, this research tends to be pragmatically driven and largely atheoretical (Barone, Miyazaki, & Taylor, 2000; Dacin & Brown, 1997; Harvey, 2001; Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001; Webb & Mohr, 1998). Barone, Miyazaki, and Taylor (2000), in a series of quasi-experimental studies, attempted to find links between consumers' knowledge of a company's outreach program and their intentions to buy or subsequent buying behavior. The researchers found that consumers were more likely to choose products from companies that support social causes if the price difference among other choices was small and the company was perceived to support the social cause for appropriate reasons. Harvey (2001) surveyed Internet users and found that while advertising may change consumers' perceptions of a product, sponsorship effects changes in consumers' perceptions of the sponsor, which by extension can influence perceptions of the sponsor's brands and products.

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Researchers also have examined how a company's involvement in social issues influences consumers' attitudes toward that company. In interviews with forty-four adults age 18 to 86, Webb and Mohr (1998) found mixed attitudes, ranging from skepticism of corporate motives to appreciation for company involvement. Dacin and Brown (1997) found that consumers were more likely to evaluate a company and its products/services favorably if they were aware ofthat company's involvement in social issues. Sen and Bhattacharya (2001) extended the Dacin and Brown study and found that "non-product dimensions" like corporate social responsibility helped create identification between consumers and a company when the consumers recognized similarities or differences between their own values and those of the corporation. In addition, consumer evaluations of companies were more affected by negative reports on corporate social responsibility than positive (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001). In a study of the value of corporate citizenship,^ Maignan, Ferrell, and Huit (1999) found that companies actively involved in the local or global community were "systematically associated with enhanced levels of employee commitment, customer loyalty, and business performance - evaluated in terms of return on assets, return on investments, profits growth, and sales growth" (p. 464). The researchers identify four types of corporate social responsibility: economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary. Of these four, discretionary responsibilities - an organization's active involvement in the betterment of society - include corporate involvement in social issues. But, the four are closely related. Findings suggest organizations that coordinate and monitor activities on all types of responsibilities are "more likely to successfully establish the image of a socially responsible organization" (p. 464). The authors conclude that corporations must be sensitive to their roles: meeting business/economic expectations, doing business legally and ethically, and contributing to society (Maignan, Ferrell, & Huit, 1999). In addition to the academic literature, national surveys assessing consumer attitudes toward corporate social responsibility, corporate involvement in social causes, etc., are frequently reported in the mainstream and trade press. Advertising Age (Webster, 2005), for example, reported the findings of two different national surveys: the 2004 Cone Corporate Citizenship Study and the 2005 Golin-Harris Corporate Citizenship Survey: "Doing Well by Doing Good." The Cone study was undertaken to assess how corporate involvement influenced the reputation and the "financial funding positions" of charities (Cone, Inc., 2005). According to the study, 89% of Americans believe that nonprofits and corporations should work together to create awareness and funding. Seventy-six percent believe such partnerships will enhance the image of the charitable organization. In addition, more than 90% of women agree with the statement: "when a product or company supports a cause I care about, I have a more positive image of that product or company" (Webster, 2005). Education, health, and the environment are the most important issues which should be addressed according to the survey. Findings of the Colin-Harris 2005 Corporate Citizenship survey indicated that "Americans say a company's commitment to good corporate

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citizensbip would influence their opinion of, relationship with or behavior toward that company" (Webster, 2005). Research and survey results seem to indicate, then, that charitable organizations and corporations both benefit from the partnerships. But, these studies view corporate involvement with causes solely within a pragmatic, "business" context, tbat is, in terms of their effectiveness in achieving particular corporate or fundraising objectives (see, e.g., Mullen, 1997). This perspective camouflages the complexity of perceptions that arises when cause-related corporate outreach is viewed within a broader social context. There, the practice is not viewed as being entirely benign. In the section which follows, we discuss the commentary surrounding the social implications of cause-related corporate outreach.
SOCIAL COMMENTARY; IMPUCATIONS OF CORPORATE INVOLVEMENT IN SOCIAL ISSUES

Literature focused on societal implications of corporate involvement in social issues is primarily critical of the practice. A variety of ethical questions arise out of what might be identified as a critical discomfort with tbe commercialization of philanthropy, that is, the interjection of a market philosophy into a process that hitherto had been outside the profit nexus. The most basic concern, tben, is centered on the perceived corporate motives for engaging in cause-related outreach. While industry professionals as well as scholars acknowledge tbe strategic and self-serving elements of corporate outreach, social commentators often imply that corporate giving should be altruistic. They question companies' charitable involvements, claiming such corporate giving is solely public relations, using the term as one of derogation (Polonsky & Wood, 2001; Plys, 2001a). An Advertising Age reporter recently noted that "When it comes to cause marketing, businesses walk a flne line between doing the right thing for the right reasons and doing the expected thing to create the right appearances" (Tenser, 2006). Also scrutinized and frequently under attack are the methods by which funds are disbursed, the percentage of funds raised given to the cause, and the process by which beneficiary decisions are made. Other issues raised deal with questionable corporate relationships, the impact of corporate giving on giving by individuals, the possibility that issues might be trivialized through their use in company marketing plans (see, e.g., Parpis, 2000), and the possibility that corporate giving might have political effects (see Flys, 2001a, 2001b). Social commentary in this arena is usually found in industry and academic literature, however, the swift and widespread response of corporations, large and small, following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States resulted in public scrutiny of cause-related corporate outreach efforts in the mainstream press, as well. This was especially true when some very visible charities like the American Red Cross came under fire for misappropriation of funds given specifically for September 11 relief The rush of corporate involvement earned botb praise and criticism. Consumer advocates criticized charities for "selling their good names" and corporations for "cash[ing] in on a tragedy through commercial tie-ins"

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(Salmon & Sun, 2002, p. AlO). Others raised concern over the percentages of proceeds actually being passed on to charities hy companies that were frequently characterized as profiting from the misfortune of others (Briggs, 2001; Morello, 2001; Groves, 2002). These concerns are not new, hut were hrought into sharper focus hy events following the September 11 attacks, and re-emerge in the face of widespread outreach in times of need such as the 2004 hurricanes in Florida, mudslides in California, 2OO5's Hurricane Katrina, and the international attention garnered hy the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia.
THE FOCUS ON HEALTH: RAISING AWARENESS OR COMMERCIAUZINC DISEASE?

According to the 2007 Cone Cause Evolution Survey (www.coneinc.com), health was the leading issue Americans want companies to address (80%) followed closely hy education, the environment, and economic development. "Americans are hecoming accustomed to messages, events, and awareness days for health issues" (coneinc.com). It is, perhaps, not surprising that corporate outreach related to disease has heen hoth lauded and reviled; to many, it seems, the "commercialization of disease" is nothing short of unconscionable. Lieberman (2001) indicts disease-related marketing, noting that: Championing diseases has become a popularity contest that magnifies the disparities in the nation's health-care system. Getting care to sick people, especially the poor, should not depend on what's popular at the moment. These contests may effectively raise money and satisfy corporate objectives, hut they are hardly the blueprint for defeating disease (p. S3). Lieberman (2001) was concerned that companies look for "safe" issues, and in doing so, may neglect worthy causes that are more controversial or have less appeal (see also, Orenstein, 2003). Aging-related diseases, for example, don't have the same appeal to corporations as do diseases like hreast cancer, one of the leading beneficiaries of corporate fundraising. Heart disease and lung cancer are also less popular causes both because the diseases may take longer to develop and because they are linked to behavioral causal factors (e.g., fatty diets or smoking) that have moral connotations. Taylor (1994; see also Ehrenreich, 2001) raises the issue of trivialization that results from the commodification of disease, noting that cosmetics companies that have product lines to "attend to 'appearance related side effects' of women's cancer" are creating a market and convincing women with cancer they "need" those products (p. 30). "'Gharity consumption' encourages us to deceive ourselves into thinking that huying more things...will help change the world, while enlisting those who suffer in various ways to cooperate by masking their suffering and making it palatable" (Taylor, 1994, p. 33).

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Breast cancer has hecome "hy far the leading cause corporations flock to"(Wehster, 2005 p. 35); advocates and critics of cause marketing related to that disease have heen particularly numerous and vocal. The discourse which has developed around breast cancer will be discussed more fully in the case study which follows. Here, however, it should be noted that critics have suggested that corporate-cause programs have constructed a positive outlook that may be deceptive. Writer and social commentator Barbara Ehrenreich (2001) eschews the breast cancer-related culture she found after her own diagnosis: "Everything in mainstream breast-cancer culture serves, no doubt inadvertently, to tame and normalize the disease; the diagnosis may be disastrous, but there are those cunning pink rhinestone angel pins to buy and races to train for" (p, 49), King (2004) shares Ehrenreich's view, "The [Komen Foundation's] rhetoric," she writes, "is so upbeat and so optimistic that it is possible to deduce from these [Race for a Cure] events that breast cancer is a fully curable disease from which people no longer die" (p, 487), King (2004) also argues that a "preoccupation with consumer oriented philanthropic practice" has altered our conceptualization and lived experience of activism. Once viewed as a collective political activity, activism is now articulated in the realm of consumption and fund raising. Commenting on the Komen Race for a Cure, she writes: ".,.it is necessary to consider the implication of the race in a broader war of position over what constitutes 'the problem of breast cancer' in the present moment and over what kinds of political action and identities are legitimate and effective in bringing about social change" (King, 2004, p, 487-488), This review of literature on corporate involvement in social issues suggests conceptual confusion that hinders further conceptual and theoretical development. Existing research has examined the benefits of cause-related outreach for corporations and beneficiary organizations and the impact of corporate outreach on company image or product sales. Consumer-based research on corporate outreach efforts has tended to be effects-based. Social commentary has focused on the social and cultural implications of corporate involvement in social issues, Schreiber and Lenson (1994) note that corporate involvement in community programs is a way for organizations to create programs to interact with consumers and create relationships based on shared values. According to them, the importance of such campaigns lies in the linkages between the company, the cause, and community values. And yet, what is largely missing from research on cause-related corporate outreach is any effort to discover the meaning that participating individuals construct from those outreach efforts. In addition, the conceptual confusion found in the literature points to a need for a clear theoretical foundation from which to study corporate outreach efforts (Cornwell and Maignan, 1998), Our study identifies corporate

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

outreach as a function of public relations. Grounded in a cultural studies theoretical approach, the premise of this study is that the audience, individuals participating in and ascribing meaning to a cause-related outreach event, play a significant role in that event.

Theoretical Foundation
Cultural Studies: A Path to Exploring the Active Audience in Public Relations Research In recent years, public relations scholarship, previously dominated by excellence theory {Grunig & Grunig, 1990), has expanded to include a multitude of alternative theoretical perspectives. In the last decade, public relations scholars have made a concerted effort to explore paradigms offering more explanatory power than existing models, including postmodernism (Holtzhausen, 2000), feminism (Creedon, 1993; Grunig, Toth, & Hon, 2000), and rhetoric (Heath, 1993, 2000). Like much traditional public relations research, however, analysis of public relations practice tends to focus on the communicator and message. Recognition of the role of audienceor targeted publicas an active participant in the communication process is largely absent (Toth, 1992). To fully understand the meaning of cause-related corporate outreach to the audience, we turn here to cultural studies, a theoretical framework within which relationships in the speaker-message-audience triad can be developed beyond those insights currently available in the public relations literature. The debate over "audience activity" has been long-standing and continues to date in mass communication and cultural studies literature (see Dow, 1996, p. 1-23, for a useful discussion of this debate). Effects-based mass communication research has emphasized how media affect people. Gultural studies scholars in both the British and American traditions have challenged this dominant, effects-based paradigm, arguing that communication is not simply message dissemination (what Carey (1975) identifies as the transmission model), but is a complex, on-going cultural process of making meaning (Carey, 1975; see also, e.g., Fiske, 1986; Hall, 1980; Newcomb, 1984). "A ritual view of communication is not directed toward the extension of messages in space but the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs" (Carey, 1975, p. 6). Newcomb (1984) draws upon Bakhtin's (1981) concept of the heteroglossia of language to explain the interpretive nature of mass-mediated messages: "Language (communication) is both material and social. It is therefore mutable. Makers and users, writers and readers, senders and receivers can do things with communication that are unintended, unplanned for, indeed, unwished for" (p. 38). Likewise, Hall (1980) contends communication is a constant negotiation between the sender, who encodes the text, that is, inscribes meaning into the text, and the receiver, who decodes, or constructs meaning from the text. The preferred meaning is the dominant hegemonic meaning constructed by tbe sender which can be accepted, negotiated, or opposed by the receiver. According to Hall, then, research that is solely text-based fails to acknowledge audience involve-

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ment in constructing meaning. Fiske (1987) notes that the ability to decode and make meaning from texts is empowering; people can resist a dominant ideology. Still, how much power an audience may have to resist dominant ideologies remains the subject of some debate. The British tradition of cultural studies differs from the American version in its emphasis on hegemony, the perpetuation of political social structure and power relationships through communication (Acosta-Alzuru, 1999; German, 1995). That is, according to scholars influenced by British cultural studies, while texts may be polysmie (that is, have multiple meanings), the meanings derived from them are limited by social constraints (Fiske, 1986; Condit, 1989). Thus, while Fiske believes audience members are empowered by their ability to construct their own meanings from texts, decoding occurs within a "network of power relations," and so, is limited: "The structure of meanings in a text is a miniaturization of the structure of subcultures in societyboth exist in a network of power relations, and the textual struggle for meaning is the precise equivalent of the social struggle for power" (Fiske, 1987, p. 392). Condit (1989), too, warns against overstating the audience's power and urges researchers to consider the audience as variable and part of the whole communication process: "The audience's variability is a consequence of the fact that humans, in their inherent character as audiences, are inevitably situated in a communication system, of which they are a part, and hence have some influence within, but by which they are also influenced" (p. 120). Dow (1996) argues that "it is a misnomer to call viewers passive if we believe they accept the ideology of a text and active if we believe they resist it. Decoding is always work and always requires competence from audiences" (p. 15). Reception studies, which place the audience within a larger social context* (Vargas, 1995), adopt the cultural studies perspective of communication as social process. For example, Radway's (1984) study of women and romance novels emphasized not only readers' interpretations of the text, but also how they read it and what meaning they gave to the act of reading. In a more recent study. Duke and Kreshel (1998) interviewed teenage girls about their use of teen magazines, exploring how the girls' interpretations of the magazine text constructed notions of femininity. Acosta-Alzuru (1999) used textual analysis and in-depth interviews to study the discourse of American Girl dolls and the meanings ascribed to the dolls by the girls who owned them. She placed the study within the context of the circuit of culture^ (du Gay, Hall, Janes, Mackay, & Negus, 1997; Johnson, 1986/87) examining three of the five "moments"of meaning-making in the circuitrepresentation, identity, and consumption (Acosta-Alzuru, 1999). And Vargas (1995) conducted an ethnographic study of "participatory" radio stations in southern Mexico to explore audiences' social use of the stations. Inherent in each of these studies is the assumption that communication texts and audiences exist within a complex social structure, and as such must be studied within that structure.

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON RREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK '

CULTURAL STUDIES-INFORMED PUBUC RELATIONS

Cultural studies scholarship can be fruitfully adapted and integrated into public relations research. The cultural approach creates a framework in which we can look at issues related to each communication element (speaker, message, audience), including issues of power, which, in the traditional models of public relations communication, are stated in terms of symmetry (Grunig & Hunt, 1984). For example, the public information model is identified as asymmetrical, and, therefore, less desirable than the two-way dialogue of symmetrical communication (Grunig & Grunig, 1990). Using Carey's (1975) terminology, the public information model views communication as transmission, something someone does to someone else; power is inherently in the hands of the speaker. In contrast, the cultivai studies approach views communication as ritual, the on-going shared construction of meaning amid a multitude of individual and cultural factors. If such negotiation didn't occur, asymmetrical messages relating information about skin cancer or heart disease or the dangers of smoking would have a much more profound impact on the health practices of audiences. Instead, the audience actively decides the expediency of using the barrage of "information" providedstrategic communication, cultural/social values, life experiences, standpointin constructing meaning. Framing public relations research within a larger cultural context is the natural progression of inquiry in the field. Much as cultural studies scholars hegan to conduct audience studies to explore an aspect of the communication process unaddressed by textual analyses (Fiske, 1986), public relations scholars can contribute to the theoretical depth of the discipline by moving beyond a concentration on messages and speakers (Toth, 1992) and embracing the more complex environment in which puhlic relations is practiced. Public relations messages, as strategically based persuasive communication, of coxurse have a preferred interpretation. However, publics may derive meanings quite different from those which the "author" intended when creating the messageperhaps reading in opposition or negotiating meaning. Recognizing this feature of communication suggests that textbased or speaker-based analyses alone are insufficient and illustrates the importance of research focused on audience construction of meaning. [I]t may indeed be true that speakers mold audiences and public destiny through puhlic speech, but it is equally true that audiences mold speakers and the public destiny as well. The constraints of the audience's needs, its willingness to call for a speaker and to listen, its demands that the orator speak for all the people and use the people's values and heritage place powerful limits on how far the speaker can take the audience... (Condit, 1985, p. 297). The study of the audience in this manner makes particular demands on the research enterprise heyond the theoretical. It necessitates an expansion of methodological tools to include more naturalistic methods so we may

HEIDI HATFMD EDWARDS & PECCY J. KRESHEL

access the multiple realities of participants. Adoption of a cultural studies approach to study public relations has important implications for public relations practitioners as well. It demands that practitioners better understand the values of the society in which they communicate. Actively cognizant of and attentive to the impact of their communication within society, practitioners can at the same time be more responsive to publics' needs.
OVERVIEW AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

As suggested thus far, this study is motivated, in part, by recognition of corporations' increased use of cause-related activities as strategic tools in meeting business objectives. Corporations have become ever-more-important participants in framing cultural understanding of social Adoption of a cultural studies issues; the impact of that particiapproach to study public relations pation largely has gone unexhas important implications for pubplored. At the same time, we recognize that focusing primarily on lic relations practitioners as well. the speaker and the text, public relations research has neglected the audience as active participants in the communication process. In order to address these absences, we conducted a case study of tbe Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. We chose a case study approach because our goal was to understand the corporate cause-related event in all its complexity, as a dynamic web of relationships (Creswell, 1998; Merriam, 1998). Our study focused on participants in this cause-related corporate outreach event to uncover the meanings participants derived from the experience of the event, their shared values, and their identification with the company and the cause. The research began with the following research questions: RQl: What is the participants' lived perception (reality) of the event? RQ2: How do participants express their sense of community through participation? RQ3: How do participants identify with the cause? RQ4: How do participants identify with the sponsoring company? RQ5: What value links do participants form between themselves, the company, and the cause? The following section describes the Avon 3-Day case. This is followed by an explanation of the multi-method qualitative research design used to

AN AtJDiENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT. THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

miderstand participants' experience of the Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk, and uncover the meanings they .constructed prior to, during, and following the event.

The Case: The Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk

Between 1998 and 2002, Avon, the cosmetics company, sponsored a series of extreme fundraising events to raise money for breast cancer.^ The scope of the Avon 3-Day Breast Cancer Walks, which rather quickly assumed the simplified moniker of "the 3-Day" in everyday use, was massive, including thousands of participants, contributors, and spectators. In foin- years, more than 58,000 participants walked in the three-day, 60-mile events in cities throughout America, including Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Each walker was required to raise almost $2,000; the event series raised almost $186 million^ for breast cancer education, programs to help medically underserved groups, and breast cancer research (Avon, 2002; Pallotta Teamworks, 2002).
AVON THE CORPORATION

Avon began employing "Avon ladies" to sell cosmetics door-to-door in 1886, and now has 3.9 million representatives in 143 countries, and sales of more than $6 billion per year. Widely recognized as a "woman's company," Avon has cultivated that image through comprehensive corporate outreach campaigns targeted toward women's issues: breast cancer (Breast Cancer Crusade); fitness (Avon Running - Clobal Women's Circuit); entrepreneurship (Women of Enterprise Program); and overall health (Worldwide Fund for Women's Health) (Avon Products, 2005). All of these programs are administered by the Avon Foundation, which was founded in 1955 to "provide much needed services and financial support in the cities, towns and villages where Avon does business" (Avon Products, 2005). The Foundation's mission is to "improve the lives of women and their families." Avon's link to primarily female issues is a deliberate effort to address its constituents' needs and interests. Through research, Avon determined that health issues, particularly breast cancer, resonated with its key publics. In a 1994 interview, a company spokesperson noted: "We felt the sincere need, almost an imperative, to continue to find ways to give back to the people who have sold oiu- products for 108 years and to the people who have bought them" (Larson, 1994, p. 17). She attributed the success of Avon's outreach to how well the causes match company values, which, according to its Web site, are "trust, respect, belief, humility and high standards" (Avon Products, 2005). The largest of the Foundation's programs, the Avon Worldwide Fund for Women's Health, began in 1992 and has fundraising initiatives in 40 countries, on four continents. The mission of the Fund is improving "the health of women globally" and increasing "awareness of women's health issues." While breast cancer is the main issue in each of its 34 initiatives, other issues include: support of .elderly caregi vers-Qapan);. cervical cancer

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARDS B- PEGCY J. KRESHEL

(Philippines); "women's" cancer (Central America and Italy); women and children in need and muscular dystrophy (Germany) (Avon Products, 2005). Most of the $250 million raised for the Fund has been through its U.S.hased Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, which hegan in 1993. The cause marketing campaign raises money for breast cancer education programs, patient services for medically underserved women (low-income, un- and underinsured), and breast cancer research. Avon raises funds for the Crusade by selling "pink ribbon products," and sponsoring the Breast Cancer Walks (Avon Products, 2005).
AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALKS

The bulk of monies raised for the Crusade came from the 3-Day Walks. Avon partnered with Pallotta Teamworks (hereafter identified as Pallotta) for the first Walk in October, 1998. More than 2,000 people walked from Santa Barbara to Malibu, California, raising $4.2 million for the breast cancer cause (Pallotta, 2001). The company sponsored four Walks in cities across the United States in 1999, nine in 2001, and 13 in 2002, before dropping its sponsorship of the 3-Day and subsequently creating a new, comparable event that still thrives. The relationships that exist within this cause marketing event are memy and complex. Walkers volunteer their bodies, physical stamina, and their fundraising capabilities; they spend months preparing to walk in the name of breast cancer, for Avon. Training in Avon t-shirts, and wearing "Ask me about the 3-Day" buttons, walkers become spokespeople for the event, breast cancer, and Avon. Families work around walker training schedules. Crew members volunteer to help produce the event, from camp set-up to clean-up, food preparation, medical services, and a multitude of other jobs. Donors give to walkers, who ultimately give to the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade. The Crusade dictates how monies are distributed. For three days, the cities, towns, and neighborhoods along the routes make room for 2,000 to 4,000 walkers who disrupt normal traffic flow to make a statement about the cause and their support of the cause. And, of course, Avon has relationships with all these publics, in addition to internal publics (e.g., shareholders, employees) and critics. Adding to the complexity is Pallotta, the event producer, which serves as an extension of Avon, coordinating all aspects of the 3-Day, including marketing, recruiting participants, collecting donations, and planning and orchestrating the Walks.
AVON, BREAST CANCER, AND PUBUC RELATIONS

Avon attempts to establish a "corporate ethos" (Hoover, 1997) by linking its name to a social cause (breast cancer). In doing so, Avon tries to "express and reformulate a shared heritage," defining major shared experiences (Condit, 1985) and creating a "specific reality" (Hoover, 1997) for its audience through the 3-Day Walk experience. Creating the image of Avon as a company that "gives back" to its employees and patrons is not the only goal of Avon's public relations or cause-related corporate outreach. An additional objective is to communicate

A N AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EvEm: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

a message that evokes a response that moves people to think or act in a way prescribed through the persuasive message. Through its outreach efforts, Avon seeks to motivate an audience to make a significant commitment to raise money, train, and participate in the Walk. The audience, an essential component in the communication triad of speaker, subject, audience, serves as the focal point for this study. The following section discusses the methods used to reach deep into the participant experience of the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk.

Methodology^
Believing...man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law, hut an interpretive one in search of meaning. (Geertz, 1973, p. 5). Adopting a cultural studies approach, the design of this case study vyas grounded in particular epistemological and ontological assumptions. The first of these is that reality does not exist independent of human perception; Carey (1975) has written: "There is reality and then, after the fact, oiuaccounts of it" (p. 12). As such, there is no single reality "out there" to be discovered; instead multiple realities are socially constructed and constantly changing (Berger & Luckmann, 1967). In methodological terms, this suggests the necessity of privileging participants' voices as experts on their 3Day Walk experiences (i.e., adopting an emic approach) over my voice as a researcher (i.e., an etic approach). Then, too, this assumption acknowledges the collaborative nature of the research project (Cuba & Lincoln, 1994). "[W]hat we call our data are really our own constructions of other people's constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to..." (Ceertz, 1973, p. 9). The understanding of the Avon 3-Day Walk discussed here was constructed by the participants and by the researcher. Recognizing that researcher subjectivities, the "complex composite of my values, attitudes, beliefs, interests and needs" (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992, p. 102) would become part ofthe data, I began this research with a period of intense, self-conscious reflection on my preconceptions of the Walk, breast cancer. Walk participants, and corporate involvement in social issues. The goal of this process was to bracket these subjectivities, that is, in Peshkin's words, "... to tame my subjectivity, to know it well, to get it in shape so that I could use it in its virtuous capacity, while minimizing its negative potential" (Clesne & Peshkin, 1992, p. 106). I continued to monitor my subjectivities throughout the research process including analysis and writing. A second assumption is that we exist within a complex social world; through communication, human beings collectively create, alter, and rebuild meaningful, symbolic worlds (Carey, 1975). As Ceertz suggests in the statement above, viewing human beings as defining and being defined by their cultural wehs has important methodological consequences. The

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goal of qualitative research is not statistical generalizability, but a depth of understanding that comes from viewing a social phenomenon in all its complexity: Meaning cannot be attained for a whole simply by looking at its parts (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 216), nor can a phenomenon be isolated from the world in which it is experienced. "If anthropological interpretation is constructing a reading of what happens, then to divorce it from what happens...is to divorce it from its application and render it vacant" (Geertz, 1973, p. 18). Gase studies are one way to capture the complexity of a phenomenon. Stake (1995) writes: The real business of case study is particularization, not generalization. We take a particular case and come to know it well, not primarily as to how it is different from others, but what it is, what it does. There is emphasis on uniqueness, and that implies knowledge of others that the case is different from, but the first emphasis is on understanding the case itself, (p. 8) This research, then, develops as an instrumental case study in that it is not merely of intrinsic interest, but explores and interprets participant experiences of the Avon 3-Day Walk toward the goal of better understanding the complexities of audience-organization-cause relationships w^ithin a causerelated corporate outreach event. The Avon case is a unique opportunity to view the relationships between and among the individuals joining a company to raise money for breast cancer as those relationships develop and mature. The first design decision was to define the parameters of the case (Stake, 1995). What is the Avon 3-Day experience? I approached this in three ways: I conducted exploratory interviews with five walkers who had participated in 3-Day Walks in previous years; I attended the closing ceremony of the 2000 3-Day Walk in Atlanta as an observer, and I engaged in what Stuart Hall (1975) has called "the long soak" (see also Kasper, 1994; Oakley, 1981). I read Avon 3-Day communications (e.g. newsletters, postcards, email); subscribed to two 3-Day email listservs whose members primarily included walkers and crew, experienced and new; and read on-line bulletin boards, national, regional, and local newspaper and magazine articles on the Avon 3-Day, breast cancer and health-related fundraisers, and other events similar to the 3-Day.^ During this initial process, I discovered that the 3-Day was much more than a weekend event for 3-Day participants. Their consideration about whether or not to walk; their assessment of their physical capabilities; their decision to register; frequently, a months-long process of training and raising money; the 3-Day Walk itself; and finally "looking back" on the Walk and discussing it with others were all part of the 3-Day Walk experience. Recognizing these boundaries, the multiple dimensions of the experience, and the epistemological and ontological assumptions discussed above, we

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OtJTREACH EVENT THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

developed a research design that used a variety of qualitative methods. These methods both privileged the voices of the participants, providing them with the opportunity to express what the 3-Day experience meant to them in their own words, and captured participant experiences as the event was happening, that is, hefore, during, and after the Walk. Additionally, this triangulation, that is, the use of multiple data-collection methods, and multiple data sources, contributes to the trustworthiness of the study, "strengthening the argument hy building in many different dimensions" (Potter, 1996, p. 153).^^ In in-depth interviews prior to the Walk, participants shared their motivations, concerns, expectations, relationships with breast cancer, etc. Audio-taped journals kept by participants during the Walk provided "realtime" narratives. In focus groups following the Walk, participants reflected on the experience in interaction with others. Additionally, through my participation in the Walk as a crew member, I helped create the 3-Day experience in a very literal sense. Through that participation, and with careful and persistent reflection on my own subjectivities, I developed my own understanding of the Walk. The section which follows discusses each method and how they fit together to tell the rich, complex story of the Walk. In-depth interviews. In the two months prior to the Walk, I interviewed 12 women and one man (women make up a majority of Walk participants; only 80 of the 2,754 Atlanta 2001 walkers were men) ranging in age from the late 20s to 50s. Two were African-American, four were breast cancer survivors, and three had participated in a prior Avon 3-Day. I used snowball sampling to locate these individuals. Participants in the Atlanta 2000 Walk who I had interviewed in my pilot study provided names of people planning to walk in 2001. I recruited two participants from Avon 3-Day email listservs (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/3-day-walk; and (http://www. onelist.com/community/Avon3-DayAtlanta), and gathered additional names from friends, co-workers, and acquaintances who knew people training for the Walk. In my pilot interviews, I had discovered that although individuals frequently had very personal reasons for participating in the Walk and often became quite emotional, building rapport was never a problem. In fact, all had been very willing to share personal information, stories, and feelings about the Walk and related topics. As such, I began the audio-taped interviews with a "grand tour" question (McCracken, 1988): "Tell me about your experience in deciding to participate and in preparing for the Avon 3-Day Walk." This broad question invited the interviewee to answer within the context of her/his experience. The remainder of the interview was semistructured; I had developed an interview guide, but referred to it only to make certain that all the issues with which I was concerned were addressed at some point. Participants were free to carry the conversation in any direction they chose. Because I was not confined by a strict series of questions, I was able to adapt the interview (and each successive interview) in response to emergent findings. Interviews lasted between 45 minutes and two hours. The longer interviews were with participants who were walking for a sec-

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ond or third time. I took careful notes during each interview, and afterward, wrote my thoughts about the participant and interview experience, reflecting on what was said, clarifying meanings, and identifying recurring themes. I transcribed the first tapes as the interviews were completed, but later hired a transcriber to expedite the process. The number of interviews, thirteen, was determined by achievement of redundancy. That is, I continued to interview Walk participants until I was hearing "no new information" (Kvale, 1996). Audio-taped journals. A woman I had interviewed during my "long soak" mentioned that she had kept a journal during the Atlanta 2000 Walk. As we talked, I realized that journals could provide richness, nuance, and depth beyond that attained even in personal interviews. Using journals, participants could tell me what they were thinking and feeling in real time, that is, as they participated in the Walk. Reflecting upon my own suhjectivities, I realized that I had expectations about what walkers would be experiencing as they covered the 60-mile route. In a journal, it would be possible for the participants to self-consciously reflect upon what the experience meant to them. Perhaps my expectations would be supported, perhaps not. What would participants find noteworthy enough to include? What would they want me to know? At the outset, I recognized that journals are very personal narratives; I didn't know if participants would be willing to share. But, the women I had interviewed were extremely open in conversations about the Walk, and I believed participants would be forthcoming. Further, there is evidence that journals can be used very successfully as data-collection tools. Spradley (1970) used journals written by a homeless man to extend and humeinize his ethnography of urban nomads, and journalists have successfully employed journal-like tools to add depth to complex stories (e.g. "Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse," National Public Radio, 1996). Having decided that journaling would be a part of my research design, I considered the strengths, weaknesses, and logistics of written versus audio journals. Once begun each day, I knew the Walk, though certainly a social experience, was also an ongoing endurance activity. Written journals possibly would be stowed with "the gear." Once packed in the morning, they wouldn't be available until the end of the day; participants would likely use the post-walk, post-program/meal evening hours to write their entries. Entries, thus, would be recollections, written at the end of a challenging day. Recollections are certainly valuable data, but they are a very particular kind of data, based at least in part upon memory of events passed. In addition, there were logistical questions: Would the journal stay dry if it rained? Would walkers have time/take time to write? Would I be able to decipher handwTiting? Audio journals, recorded on micro-cassette tape recorders which could easily be stowed in fanny-packs during the Walk, introduced the possibility of spontaneity and real-time "reporting." Participants could journal at their leisure, independent of light conditions or a place to write. They could

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

talk about what they saw as they saw it, what they felt as they felt it. They could involve others in their recordings. Pragmatically, tapes also eliminated the need to decipher handwriting idiosyncrasies and could easily he transcribed. I decided on personal audio journals and asked eight participants from the initial interview pool to keep a journal during the Walk. Participants varied in their age, race, gender (the one man I interviewed agreed to keep a journal), number of Walks, and relationships to breast cancer. Six journals were completed. A few weeks before the Walk, I sent participants a package containing materials they would need for journaling, including a micro-recorder, cassettes, extra batteries, plastic baggies (to keep out moisture), a small notebook, and return postage. I gave participants only the most basic instructions and guidelines/suggestions for keeping their journals, asking them to begin making entries the day hefore the Walk began and continuing through the day after, longer if they chose. For entries made during the Walk, I asked only that they include the day and time of the entry. Otherwise, they were free to talk as frequently, or infrequently, as they wanted, about whatever topics they chose. Participants were asked to return the journals by mail within three weeks after the Walk, using the package, pre-addressed label, and postage I had provided. As journals arrived, I listened to each one carefully before sending it to the transcriber. While most journal-keepers were very straight-forward, methodically describing the Walk experience and their feelings in their opening and closing entries, the character and content of the other entries varied widely. Several journalers included tent-mates and walker friends; for these participants, the experience was a shared one. One woman recorded herself and her friends as they were heing interviewed for a local radio program on their way to the Walk. Another woman "interviewed" people during the Walk, including a small group who traveled with her in a sweep van, a van provided for those who couldn't complete the day's route. Some participants were very pragmatic, commenting primarily on the logistics of the event; while others gave more personal accounts. Listening to tapes and reading transcripts brought me close to tears, made me laugh aloud, and ultimately, gave me a very real, intimate sense of the Walk I couldn't have obtained in any other way. Participant observation. October 6, 2001, 8:00 a.m.: Cot up at 5:00 a.m. because I couldn't bear to sleep in a puddle anymore. I shoved everything in my bag except my sleeping pad, which had begun to soak up water like a sponge. Is this what they mean about the "messiness" of qualitative research? Most of the camp was up early, rained out of their slumber. Ponchos are the fashion for the day. Walkers are boarding busses for transport to start Day 2. Their con-

HESDI HATFMD EDWARDS S- PEGGY J. KRESHEL

versations center on the soggy conditions. A small group near me is complaining until one of them chastised the others, "No whining." Immediately their conversation changed. Positive. Still, the rain is pouring. (First author, 3-Day journal) Prior to deciding to observe as part of the crew, I had examined the range of optionsfrom uninvolved observer to participation as a walker. I had agonized about how immersed I should become as an observer. Should I actually register to walk? The commitment to participate in the Avon 3Day is significant. Would I have been able to raise the money, give up the time to train, walk, and still maintain enough emotional distance to prevent myself from "going native," becoming so involved that I would be blind to the meaning of the experience (Wolcott, 1999)? I did not think so. I considered heing a non-participating observer, following the route with no official role, simply watching and taking notes. But, I would miss so much of the experience - how participants interacted; 24/7 togetherness for three days; and the adventure of camping in little tents, sometimes with strangers, showering in tractor-trailers, and using porta-potties. How did participants feel about "being swept"? If I wanted to understand the experience, I needed to be more involved. Participating as a crew member was a sensible solution. Crew members, like walkers, are participants in the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk. As part of the crew, I had not raised money. I had not done the training. But, I was still very much a part of the event. The crew functioned in all aspects of the Walk, advancing the campsites to prepare the grid for the "tent-city" and putting up large tents for camp offices like medical, massage, and concierge. Crew members prepared meals, set up the stage, cleaned up debris, hauled camping gear, and otherwise readied the camp. Teams set up pit stops and grab-and-go stops, dispensing water, Gatorade, and snacks. One crew team marked the route with signs each day. Another team followed the walkers in "sweep" vans. Still others worked as security on the route and around the campsite, or acted as safety monitors during the Walk, riding motorcycles and bikes, encouraging walkers. The specialty crew members provided medical services and massage. In other words, the crew members worked for and with the walkers throughout the 3-Day. And while we did not walk, we shared much of the walker experience. My job during the 3-Day was with the stage crew. Self-identified as the "Stage Hands," this relatively small teamnine of ushelped the professional stage-set-up crew build, light, and set up sound for the main stage in the tent-city in which walkers made their home each night. We also erected the main arch through which walkers entered camp at the end of the Walk each day. The next morning, our task was to disassemble our work, move to the next site, and repeat the process. The Stage Hands were busy in the morning and at night, but I had several breaks during the day to wander around camp and mingle with other volunteers and walkers. I set up tents, cheered walkers as they entered camp, and helped people find medical

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCEB 3-DAY WALK

attention. I directed waterlogged campers to the shnttle going to the laundromat and the promise of dry clothes. In qniet times, I wrote extensive field notes in a small notebook and, like journal-keepers, I recorded my thoughts and feelings on a small tape recorder I carried at all times. These notes provided a thick description of my experience (Geertz, 1973). I reconstructed the field notes as soon as possible after the weekend event to fill in gaps; this, too, was an important step in the process of analysis (Wolcott, 1999). As a crew member, then, I experienced Avon's efforts to construct the Walk experience in two ways; I received newsletters, emails, and other communication from Avon that presented a very particular imderstanding of the Walk; and I quite literally helped the company "set the stage," putting Avon's physical construction into place. To what I heard in interviews and read in brochin-es, newspaper articles, and other communication, I now added my own lived experience of the Walk. Focus groups. The 3-Day Walk is a collective experience almost from beginning to end. Shortly after registering, participants are assigned Avon "coaches." These coaches urge them to form training groups months before the Walk, and many participants do. Ultimately, walkers spend three days constantly surrounded by otber walkers, crew, supporters that line the route, and volunteers. Focus groups were incorporated into the study's design, precisely because I wanted to draw upon participants' collaborative experiences in yet another collaborative experience. "In focus groups, the goal is to let people spark off one another, suggesting dimensions and nuances of the original problem that any one individual might not have thought o f (Rubin & Rubin, 1995, p. 140). Focus groups, then, added another dimension to the data collected through interviews, join-nals, and observation, a dimension that comes both from individual recollections and from refiections shared among participants. Three months after the walk, I conducted three focus groups. The first focus group had four female participants, all in their mid-30s. The.2001 Atlanta 3-Day had been their first experience with the Walk; none of them had family or friends diagnosed with breast cancer, nor had they personally experienced the disease. A woman I had interviewed helped recruit these participants from a larger group of Atlanta 3-Day walkers in her area, though she was unable to attend. Another interviewee helped recruit the five women who participated in the second focus group. She and the other four had trained together, sharing much of the experience of the Walk. Three had participated in more than one 3-Day. Four were in their mid-to-late 50s and were breast cancer survivors; the fifth participant was 36. The third focus group consisted of six women and two men recruited from multiple sources, including one of the people I had interviewed and the wife of a crew member I had met during the 3-Day. This last group was the most diverse; They varied in age (29 to 60), experience (from one walk to three, including one crew member), and exposure to breast cancer (from none, to having a family member with breast cancer, to a breast cancer survivor and her husband).

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Prior to each focus group, participants completed a hrief questionnaire in which they were asked to provide basic demographic information, write ahout why they had become involved in the 3-Day, and identify their "most memorable image" of the 3-Day experience. They shared this information in their introductions. Writing the answers ensured the integrity of individual responses, and also was useful in stimulating discussion later. Again, because I wanted to privilege the participants' voices, I imposed very limited structure on the groups' conversations (Morgan, 1997). I had developed a moderator guide hased on themes that had arisen in preliminary analysis of the interviews and journals, hut again, I referred to the guide only to make certain all themes were covered. Participants guided the discussion. Initially, I had worried that while my participation in the Walk as a crew memher would encourage rapport, it had the potential to truncate conversation; that is, things might he considered "understood" and thus, left unspoken. Fortunately, the latter scenario did not prove to be the case. Participants seemed to accept my dual role of researcher and participant, telling vivid, and frequently, detailed stories as if I had not been at the Walk. Occasionally, I prohed for elaboration. Groups met for about an hour and a half. I taped the discussions, but also took notes. The tapes were transcrihed as each focus group was completed. Three months after the Walk, focus group participants and I had had time to reflect on oin: participation in the 3-Day Walk. Participants recollected their personal experiences and shared what the Walk had meant to them with the others. Throughout the course of the group session, participants considered their relationships with Avon, with breast cancer as hoth a disease and a cause, with each other, and with others "outside" the event. I learned what the Walk experience meant to each participant, noting patterns, and similarities and differences both large and small.

Findings: Participants Experience the 3-Day

Piedmont Park, Atlanta... The October afternoon is sunny and surprisingly warm after a chilly morning. More than 2,500 people, mostly women, line up for their grand entrance into a celebration marking the end of a three-day, 60-mile trek from Lake Lanier to Piedmont Park, an emotionally and physically challenging journey. Walking. Limping. A few struggling on crutches. With smiles, laughter, and tears, the walkers have persevered through rain, soaked camping gear, and cold overnight temperatures. They have raised five million dollars for breast cancer detection, treatment, and research. Weary, but excited, walkers rejoice in their accomplishments even as their blistered feet bear the burden of three days of solid walking. Cheers and applause that will last for almost 30 minutes erupt from the thousands of spectatorswell-wishers, friends, family, folks

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONflvA CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OtjTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

who are interested or fust happened to be in the parkas the first walkers enter. Balloons and banners are scattered throughout the crowd. A man at the edge of the staging area holds a sign: "Way to go Susan! I love you!" In his other arm he holds a blond little boy, a toddler. After a few moments the man turns the sign; tiny handprints surround the words, "I'm proud of you! I love you. Mommy!" The little boy claps uncertainly, looking for "Mommy," seemingly bewildered at all the excitement. The man bounces the little boy as their eyes scan the walkers entering beneath a large banner that declares "Every Mile Made a Difference. " Farther away, up the hill, a woman in a lawn chair holds a large bouquet of pink latex balloons. Beside her chair is a helium tank and a large bag full of ribbons. As walkers pass, she gives them a balloon. "Thankyou," she says. Music blasts through huge speakers. Walkers in navy blue 3-Day t-shirts lead the procession. Yelling. Clapping. Waving. Some sport balloons, courtesy of the woman with the helium tank. A few grasp flowers, water bottles, or Catorade. "Stay hydrated." How many times had they heard that? A woman in a red t-shirt mingles with the walkers, eyes scanning in case there should be a help signal (forearms crossed with clenched fists raised high into the air). She is part of the medical crew, still on alert for dehydrated, exhausted walkers. Make-up-free faces look tired but happy. Two women stand side-by-side, arms linked, swaying back and forth, waving. One has a shoe in her hand, her foot wrapped with gauze and tape, the swelling evident below the dressing. A tall man waving a soggy towel, hair flattened with sweat against his head, hugs his teammates as they join the procession. One group carries a large American flag, a now-familiar gesture of patriotism; it is less than a month since 9/11. All weekend, red, white, and blue mixed with pink, a co-mingling of symbols rich with meaning. At least one team of walkers coordinated what they would wear to walk Saturdayred, white, and blueand word spread through camp Friday night. On Saturday morning, several hundred participants had somehow assembled appropriately colored attire or accessories, to join in the patriotic display. The bond of nationalism gains momentum in the holding area Sunday afternoon as walkers learn the U.S. has begun retaliatory attacks on Afghanistan. Still, the

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purpose and meaning of the Walk remain at the forefront. And now, the survivors enter to even louder cheers. Clad in pink survivor t-shirts, these walkers fill a space remaining in the center of the other walkers, most of whom are now shoeless, raising their walk-worn sneakers in the air in tribute to survivors. The procession of pink is diverse. A white-haired man. A bald woman. A woman with a thin, metal prosthetic leg. Young and old. Suddenly, the blond little boy in his father's arms begins clapping, all hesitancy gone now as he bounces up and down, yelling, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" Across the crowd, a young woman in a pink shirt spots them and waves, tears streaming down her smiling face, her ponytail bouncing as she tries to maintain eye contact with her personal cheering section. Then, a small, empty circle of survivors symbolizing those who have died of breast cancer slowly makes its way to join the other survivors. Tears are flowing freely now, amid smiles, laughter, and cheers. Finally, the volunteer crew joins the walkers. A 500-person troopmost in white shirts, the medical crew in redmakes its way through the middle of the crowd. The 3-Day community is now complete. I am in white. No makeup. Hair in a ponytail. I watch in awe as the ceremony comes together. The well-orchestrated formation seems so right. I am right up front on the platform holding the crew. I am surrounded by the rest of the "Stage Hands, " my crew team. As speeches begin, I sit down at the edge of the stage. Front row, center. Short speeches by survivors and event organizers are rich with praise and encouragement. Continue to fight for the cause. A survivor tells of her determination to walk in every 3-Day event in 2001; Atlanta is another one down, bring on New York. Dan Pallotta, whose company, Pallotta Teamworks produces the 3-Days, is inspiring as he talks about the power of the individual. Though his address is well-rehearsed, a testimonial to his commitment to social causes and individual empowerment, I see tears glisten in his eyes. Is this part of the orchestration? He does it well. His words gain momentum and end with a benediction of sorts: go forth to spread the word about breast cancer, kindness, and the 3-Day experience. And, perhaps, to walk in another 3-Day.

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION BV A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

As the celebration ends, boundaries, perhaps artificial to begin with, blur. Navy blue, pink, white, and red mix with the colorful apparel of family and friends. Participants hug, exchange addresses, introduce families to newfound friends. Signs and balloons are markers as walkers seek loved ones among the throng. A woman, talking to the man next to her, still holds her shoes. "I just can't put them back on." He nods, patiently walking beside her as she gingerly makes her way to reclaim her gear; he hefts her bag and leads her to a waiting car. Whisking her home for a hot bath and comfortable slippers? The park empties slowly. Another Atlanta 3-Day adventure celebrated. As I drive home, listening to my journal, I reflect on my own experience of the 3-Day. I reconstruct the first night. That night, I felt the community come together. The community I see through my notes is a functional citya small town with people working to maintain its structure. To the outside world, the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk is exactly that: a 3-day experience. In fact, Avon itself celehrates what happens in those 3 days in its recruiting materials: The experience is palpable, but nearly indescribable: to witness the myriad acts of kindness performed in camp and along the route; to walk beside a survivor, even in silence; to be a survivor, out here under the blue sky and canopy of possibility; to find the tears flowing and the laughter contagious amongst loved ones and new friends, in the very slipstream of courage.. .to read these invisible words of courage in the wind on the road, to hear these unvoiced exclamations in the steps of each woman and man, is to know why so many past participants insist, without hesitation, that the 3-Day was the greatest experience of their lives. (Pallotta Teamworks catalogue of 2002 events. We The People, 2001, p. 17) Yet, I discovered in my conversations witli walkers that the 3-Day experience began when participants decided to register, and extended well after the closing ceremony. The Walk, then, is in some sense, a metaphor, a visible symbol of a lengthy process of creating a functional community. Participants, each with a personal biography, came to the experience with a wide range of motivations and expectations and created a web of relationships that extend beyond the connections between and among the organization, the cause, and the participants. It was in the course of building these relationships that participants gave meaning to their experiences. Wrapped in symbolism, the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk was painstakingly orchestrated - from beginning to end - by Avon and the event producer, Pallotta Teamworks (which we will refer to, hereafter, as Avon).

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When walkers registered, Avon sent them an Avon 3-Day t-shirt and a hinder of materials to help them prepare for the event. The binder included fundraising information: sample letters, suggestions, tips, creative ideas, information about breast cancer; . ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ an introduction to the basics of Wrapped in symbolism, the Avon the Walk - what to expect, how to Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk was prepare; and a training guide. The painstakingly orchestrated - from training guide included a mileage chart, suggestions for how to beginning to end - by Avon and the build up to long distances over event producer, Pallotta Teamworks several months, and information (wbicb we will refer to, bereafter, as on nutrition, stretching, equipAvon). ment, and safety. Avon re-emphasized this information in monthly newsletters, which also contained lists of locally organized training walks and inspirational messages from breast Ccincer survivors. Walker coaches regularly contacted participants by telephone and email, checking their training and fundraising progress. Participants relied upon this constant flow of information. Elizabeth!^: The newsletters we get are just, from the very beginning, just what you need to do...T-minus-eight months to go, seven months.... constant information of where we need to be, what we need to do, where to get help, who to call, where to buy your shoes. There Eire massive training walks everywhere throughout Atlanta. And every month they give you all that stuff. So it is just a wealth of information. Because Avon so carefully constructed and delivered this information, it is tempting to evaluate the "effectiveness" of the communication in the context of a "transmission" framework (Carey, 1975). That is, simply to ask: did participants heed Avon's pragmatic suggestions for how they should train and raise funds? But, as the discussion here will suggest, to do so would overlook how participants actively and perhaps unconsciously incorporated the guidelines provided in those communications as the foundation of community buildingconstructing an identity, sharing stories, creating rituals. As such, rather than being solely a way to "present reality," Avon's guidelines "created the very reality they represented" (Carey, 1975, p. 16). Within the reality of that community, participants were drawn closer to each other and closer to the cause, building new and complex 3-Day relationships. It was in the course of building these relationships that participants gave meaning to their 3-Day experience. The following sections address each research question in turn. This organization of our discussion is used in order to provide structure to the reading of the findings. Yet, it should be noted that such compartmentalization is .at .hest artificial; it introduces .the possihility of camouflaging the

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-EELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY.WALK

complexity of the event and the relationships developed and nurtured within it. The story told here, then, is hest read holistically; participants' comments often provide insight into multiple questions simultaneously. This is especially true in answering the first research question, for all findings speak to this question. What follows is the participants' story of the 3-Day experience.
RQl : WHAT IS THE PARTICIPANTS' UVED PERCEPTION (REAUTY) OF THE EVENT?

To begin to understand participants' lived perceptions of the Walk, it is important to start with their motivations for walking and their perceptions of themselves as participants in the experience. A particularly revealing finding is the dynamic nature of these motivations and self-perceptions. Interviews, journals, and focus groups provided a window on to transformations, some quite obvious, others more subtle, that took place as the experience of the 3-Day matured.
MOTIVATIONS.

There is one thing, and only one thing, that each and every person who's ever done one of our events, is doing one of our events, or ever will do one of our events has precisely, exactly, and completely in common. It's not that they're compassionate, although they are that. It's not that they're courageous, although they're that, too. What everyone and anyone who's ever done one of our events has in common precisely, exactly, and completely is that they filled out the registration form. They chased down their demons and they moved beyond hesitancy and they declared, "Yes." (Pallotta, 2001, pp. 129-130.) Individuals came to their decisions to walk from different places in their lives; for each, the Walk fulfilled a personal need. For some it was a need to fight against a disease that had taken something from them: their own health, a loved one, their self-confidence. As Frankie said: "It has given me the opportunity to 'slay the dragon' ... It has given me the opportunity to fight back." For survivors, the Walk was a way to demonstrate agency against a disease over which they seemingly have no control and to acknowledge that, having had the disease, they had something to offer to others: Elizabeth: The thing that motivates me is that I had breast cancer. I know that my chances of getting breast cancer again are certainly increased because I had it once, and I am not going to let that happen. I have a couple of friends that right now are battling breast cancer and they are going to win it and I am going to help them by doing things like this.

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Sharon: [I]t dawned on me... 'You don't have a disease, you have knowledge and now do something with it.' And that was the day I decided to do this Walk. Here I have this first hand knowledge and I can share it with other people. It is not the end of your life, it is not a death sentence anymore. Yon can, I can help other people, so I am going to do it. Still other participants undertook the Walk in order to access their inner strength and huild their self-esteem, to feel special. Sylvia signed up for the Walk as a way to focns on her well-being. It began as a way for her to adopt a healthier lifestyle and lose weight. Walking the 3-Day, taking time to raise money for breast cancer, legitimated the time she was taking for herself. For Linda, like Sylvia, the cause was in the hackground, almost an afterthought. "Oh," she noted, "I'm all for it." Bnt she was motivated primarily by the personal satisfaction, the "empowerment" she got from taking on the challenge and meeting her goals: Linda: ... doing something of this nature, it empowers yon. Yon feel good abont yourself. Yon say, 'Yes, I can do it.' And I try to take that into a lot of the different things that I do in my life...[E]ach year right before the Walk, I get to the point where.. .1 don't like my life again and I kind of go through that cycle. And then it is time for the Walk and then I complete that Walk and, boom, I am renewed and refreshed for another year. So in a way I think that is what keeps me coming back to do it each year. Walkers' motivations, then, were complex, had multiple dimensions, and were very personal. Their expectations regarding what they would get ont of the Walk were more consistent. It is perhaps not surprising, given the physical demands of the Walk, that positive physical outcomesweight loss, bodies that were more fitwere the most commonly expressed expectations. After months of training and subsequently completing the walk, many had met their physical expectations, acknowledging increased stamina and muscle tone, and generally improved health. Sylvia had lost weight; she felt she was in hetter shape. The greatest disappointment expressed was the failure to lose weight. As walkers told me about training and improved fitness levels, and about becoming fund-raisers and asking for donations, I perceived a subtle shift in how they spoke about themselves. They constructed a very particular identity, and that identity accompanied them throughout the 3-Day experience. No longer were they merely "walking in the 3-Day"; they became "3Day walkers." It was that identity that brought them together as a community. Walkers construct a new identity: "I am a 3-Day Walker. " Avon stressed

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-BELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EvEm: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

that anyone could participate in the 3-Day: [Y]ou don't have to be young, an athlete, or an expert fundraiser to do it... Sure, you may find an athlete or two zooming by you on the route. But the great sweating niasses are just amazing regular people on a mission, determined to make their presence felt... Some have creaky knees, a little bit of a gut, a little bit of a butt, a lot of wrinkles, an historic lack of discipline, a tiny bankbook... mainstream citizens accomplishing unheard-of, powerful things, staring down the impossible. (Pallotta Teamworks catalogue of 2002 events. We The People, 2001, p. 6) Walkers are "ordinary people doing extraordinary things," said the brochure. But 3-Day walkers formed an exclusionary community, an elite group differentiating themselves from those who wouldn't be participating. What characterized a 3-Day walker? Perhaps fhe dominant quality articulated by these participants was commitment. They felt they were exceptional because they took the initiative, put out the effort. They were committed to meeting their physical and fundraising goals. It wasn't only that 3-Day walkers were fit, fhey had followed the Avon guidelines. 3-Day walkers didn't merely walk, they trained to walk: Frankie: [My husband and I] did 20 miles on Saturday and 19 on Sunday. And I followed every guideline that they had emailed me or put in that brochure. I stretched every hour, I made sure every mile I hydrated, things like that. Now he- didn't do the stretching, he stretched hefore and afterwards. And Monday he got up to go to work and really could not move and I just hopped right out of bed. 3-Day walkers were proud of themselves. They viewed themselves as resilient, powerful, special, extraordinary. As Frankie's comment about her husband suggests, they were protective of their identity. Elizabeth was incensed when a co-worker suggested her hard work to build endurance was little more than an everyday achievement: Elizabeth: I had this guy at work that really pissed me off. He said, 'I can do that.' And I said, 'Come out starting Saturday morning, I want to see you.' ... I don't think people have any idea of what it is like... I mean, I work a fiveday week and every morning I was up and on the weekends I was up walking ... It is the hardest thing I have ever done; but the best thing I have ever done. It should be noted that not everyone walking in the 3-Day trained seriously, and while that may not have kept them from assuming the "walker" identi-

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ty, Patta made a distinction between those who finished and the "men and younger women" who hadn't trained hard enough because they thought they were fit. She told of meeting a man on the Walk who was "stooped over, had a pulled hamstring," and was not going to finish the route that day. She helped him up a hill. "He thought he was in good shape," Patta said. "[T]hose of us who don't think we are in good shape, and are determined to train, end up being the ones who can make it." Like Elizabeth, Patta was protective of the walker identity; walkers were expected to follow a particular pattern of behavior. 3-Day Walkers are activists. For Frankie, being a 3-Day walker "shows people that you are willing to fight for your cause, and that you are dedicated to your cause." Likewise, Lauren's participation was symbolic of her commitment - her relationship - to the prevention and cure of the disease. Laiu:en made a distinction between her efforts in the 3-Day and in other, less involved fundraising activities: Lauren: [Y]ou are not going to get a $500 check if you walk a 5K....after you have confronted breast cancer or have had a family member confront breast cancer, you feel like 60 miles is nothing compared to what I went through with breast cancer. Elizabeth, a self-described breast cancer activist, used the Walk to make people more conscious of breast cancer issues: Elizabeth: I wear a pin that says Avon 3-Day most of the time, all year long. And people are like, 'What is that?' And I talk to them about breast cancer, breast cancer awareness, and early detection...I use this as a means of awareness and getting the word out. For Elizabeth, the pin was a conversation starter, a non-intrusive way to share her story and advocate breast health. Similarly, Sharon was very vocal about her experience with breast cancer. She said when she wore her 3-Day shirt she would go up to "total strangers" and ask them, "Have you had your mammogram?" She was zealous in encouraging women to be vigilant about their health. Frankie, Lauren, Elizabeth, and Sharon are breast cancer survivors and may have been participating because they are breast cancer activists. They said they were using the 3-Day as a symbol of their dedication. Linda, who initially mentioned the breast cancer cause almost tangentially as a motivation for participation, developed a sense of activism for breast cancer through her 3-Day participation: Linda: And so, it [her participation] developed maybe into an advocacy.. .Whenever I talk to women, especially, I talk about what I'm doing and involved in, and...are they doing a mammogram?
AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A. CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON RREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

Though linked by activism, not all were hreast cancer activists. For example, for Dixie, Franklin, Adria, Susan, and Sylvia, the Walk did not translate into a personal agenda regarding hreast cancer. Their interests were in the physical challenge and support of a cause, which this time happened to he hreast cancer, but might just as easily have heen leukemia and lymphoma or AIDS. Dixie: [Qertainly the cause had a lot to do with it. I almost did one of the leukemia marathons a couple of years ago and the joke with that was I just decided I didn't have time to train to walk 26 miles. And of course, now I am walking 60 miles. But I like the idea of not just raising money hut actually having to do something physical to sort of show your commitment. Sylvia, too, was an activist for many causes and had done other, lessdemanding walks, the March of Dimes and Great Strides for cystic fihrosis. Adria was involved in diabetes charities because her mother had diabetes, while Franklin, who had a child die of sudden infant death syndrome, was active in SIDS charities, and had walked and run in other charity events. In some cases, then, participation in the 3-Day experience satisfied a general sense of activism. In others, the 3-Day became a vehicle for the development of an interest in activism. Kristi noted that the Walk inspired her and others around her to become more involved in giving back to her community: Kristi: I think personally... [my involvement in the Walk] has rubbed off...I have family that is going to walk and crew...My husband wants to do something...He signed up for two Saturdays for Habitat [for Humanity]. He said he could tell what a difference [my involvement] made and he wants to be able to do something, too. "What matters is not which cause you choose, but that you choose at east one, and in so doing, choose the greatest cause of allthe cause of action in sen/ice of humanity" (Pallotta catalog, 2001, p. 1). In sum, a 3-Day walker was committed - to training, to fundraising, to a cause. Individually, participants had registered for the 3-Day for any numher of reasons, but over time, personal reasons fused with the collective purpose. A 3-Day community based on mutual commitment began to develop. The next section explores how these transformations came to he.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE 3-DAY COMMUNITY: A LOOK AT 3-DAY RELATIONSHIPS

As suggested previously, the 3-Day Walk itself is something of a spectacle, a celebration of a vital functional community constructed around a causeparticipants, crew, family members, volunteers, boosters, Avon. Only partially visible in this showcase is the web of relationships at its heart.These relationships formed and flourished in folklore, ritual, and val-

HEIDI HATELD EDWARDS

& PEGGY J.

KRESHEL

ues shared in the experiences of training, fundraising, and preparing for the Walk. Other members of the 3-Day community are invisible, hut no less presentthe donors, those for whom 3-Day Walkers are walking, patients, memories. The following sections explore these relationships and how they "came to be" in the words of Walk participants. The findings related to research questions two and three are discussed as one, because the community that emerged did so primarily through participants' identification with the cause. Indeed, as noted earlier, the findings should be read holistically, for only taken together do they tell the walkers' story.
RQ2: How DO PARTICIPANTS EXPRESS THEIR SENSE OF COMMUNITY THROUGH PARTICIPATION? RQ3: How DO PARTICIPANTS IDENTIFY WITH THE CAUSE?

Preparing for the Walk: The beginnings of a community The activities we collectively call communicationhaving conversations, giving instructions, imparting knowledge, sharing significant ideas, seeking information, entertaining and heing entertainedare so ordinary and mundane that it is difficult for them to arrest our attention. (Carey, 1975, p. 11) Each walker made a personal decision to walk and, so, began the experience as an individual. Many told me they had started their training walking alone or with a friend a couple miles a day. But, following the pragmatic suggestions in the Avon 3-Day communication, their once-solitary training expanded to include other walkers. Adelaide: I can remember being daunted by thinking that I had to walk seven or eight miles. How am I going to do that? ... So I would start out and then go a little longer and ... I met some other people and we all exchanged email addresses. Then this whole email exchange started happening and there were a few of us that decided to make our training a little bit more formal. Instead of just training by ourselves, we would meet...Then the group starting growing and growing and before long... there were between 10 and 14 of us who trained together. This created a support system - a sensible way to train. Walkers shared the same goals: finishing the Walk and raising money. They had the same time frame. They faced the same long training walks. Together, they were more likely to follow Avon's training suggestions, reminding each other to stretch, to hydrate, to wear proper shoes, to be safe. Train with other walkers. Meet on the weekend - at the library, at Stone Mountain, wherever. Here's a list of training walks. Bring your water bottle, energy bars, an extra pair of

AN AUDIENCE IWEBPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT. THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

socks, Avon advised. So "ordinary and mundane," and yet, in these activities, the 3-Day community was created. Training took on new dimensions: storytelling, friendships, and honding: Adelaide: We have so much fun on those [training] walks. We talk about everything under the sun, from recipes to hushands, to you name it... I mean meeting the women from all different walks of life that I would have never come in contact with otherwise has heen really amazing. That has heen great - the camaraderie that has come out of it... Participants walked together, and they talked. What had hegun as an individual project hecame a shared one: shared values, shared stories ahout their lives, the Walk and hreast cancer. Two- and three-time walkers shared their experiences, giving advice, telling the first-timers what to expect. The rituals kept them: going: Adelaide: [W]e walked in the rain one weekend, in the pouring rain and we walked the whole thing in the rain. This one girl, she gave us all this great recipe for hroccoli slaw, and we were walking up this really hard hill... We were like, 'Give us another ingredient...' So now every time we hit a hill, we ar like 'hroccoli slaw.' As a motivational tool, Avon urged walkers to rememher the pin-pose of the Walk: You are making a powerful statement, raising money and awareness for all the people who have, have had, or will have breast cancer. As noted, while some came to the Walk motivated hy the cause, for many, hreast cancer was peripheral. But participants told me that as they joined with other walkers, their understanding of "what they were doing," and "why they were doing it" changed. Eileen trained with a large group, and in' doing so, she came to view her participation no longer as her personal "sacrifice" for a cause, hut as part of a group effort to reach a common destination: Eileen: There is a lady that walks around Stone Mountain who will he at the 3-Day Walk and she has one leg. She uses a prosthetic leg...and seeing that gave me even more incentive to keep going hecause she can do it with one leg and I am doing it on two. So I am thinking it is really making me a stronger person and making me realize the sacrifices in life that you have to do to achieve yoiu- common goal.

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARDS

& PEGGY J

KRESHEL

Eileen's increased self-awareness of breast cancer and of her own relationship to the disease was a feeling expressed by many study participants. They talked of becoming more aware of breast cancer, its dimensions, and its effects as they strode side-by-side with a survivor, with a survivor's sister, mother, friend. Katie said she had been raising money for "everybody" - the nameless, faceless people with breast cancer - until she started training with several survivors and "hearing their stories." Mary Katherine, too, talked of intensely emotional stories told by a training partner that changed her perspective on the disease and on those who struggled to survive: Mary Katherine: To hear her stories about thinking that it was going to be her last Christmas...and giving ornaments and telling her husband...I don't mind if you get married again, but...make sure that my daughters get these ornaments. I still have cold chills about that, when she told me that. She is a remarkable lady. Linda told of becoming friends with the mother of a young woman with breast cancer. During their training walks, Linda listened to her new friend share her concerns, feelings, and frustrations as she watched her daughter battle the disease. The young woman died. Linda went to the funeral and comforted her friend. Suddenly, for Linda, as for so many other participants, breast cancer was no longer a set of statistics, no longer the story of a stranger in a newsletter. It was real. It had a face. It was her friend. Linda: As I did my training...and started meeting people that were involved [in the Walk] and ...women who had dealt with breast cancer and especially the family members and friend that were caretakers for these women...And I got to thinking, you know, if they can put out this much energy...maybe I can put out my energy through the fundraising process, through making a statement about breast cancer. Linda went from considering the cause as an afterthought to viewing her participation as a personal statement about breast cancer. For her, the 3-Day assumed a very different meaning. The community extends its reach and firms its foundation. The pragmatics of "asking for contributions" had powerful implications beyond the expediency of fundraising. Participants told me that asking for donations forced them to reflect on exactly how they felt about breast cancer. Then too, following Avon's practical suggestion to ask potential contributors their stories, walkers invited those donors into the 3-Day community; donors' stories entered into the accumulating folklore. The following sections will discuss each of these dimensions of meaning-making in tuin. Walkers' self-reflection on their relationship to breast cancer. As suggested, participants' discussion of their fundraising activities provided

AN AUDIENCE INTERPUKTATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION, IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EvEm^ THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

insight into the nature and depth of their relationship with breast cancer. Here too, in listening to their stories, I was able to discern subtle changes as the experience matured. The walkers I talked with used a variety of fundraising methods - usually simple and understated - most suggested by Avon: writing letters; collecting money in a jar at a local store; making and selling pink ribbons at a local festival; seeking corporate sponsorship. But for most walkers, personal letters were the heart of their fundraising efforts, and brought in the most contributions. Although most walkers followed the form of a sample letter provided by Avon in their introductory binder, they personalized it, and in doing so, they were forced to articulate what breast cancer meant to them and why they were walking, sometimes for the first time. Susan remarked, "it is important to have a cause and then be able to explain to people and express why you are doing it." The farther walkers reached beyond friends and family to others - coworkers, acquaintances, corporations, and even clients - the more emphasis they put on their relationships with breast cancer. Linda: The first year I relied on family and close friends. The first thing I did was look up my Christmas card list and sent letters to those people...then I did go to my boss, my CO-workers...and I did approach one client. But those were a difficult group to approach because, again, I had to sit down, I had to really explain what I was doing and where I was coming from, whereas when you are going to close friends and family, often times, they'll support you 'just because'... Walkers shared their own stories, giving potential donors the "opportunity" to support the cause, to make a statement without making the 3-Day commitment. "I'll walk for you," they said. For some walkers, expressing their association with the cause was easy. "I had breast cancer." "My mother had breast cancer." They offered their personal experiences as the face behind the number: Carrie: Fundraising was so easy because I had a lot of friends and family around the country who did not know I had breast cancer and I just had checks appearing in my mailbox on a daily basis, which just blew me away. Patta: My letters were letters telling why I was walking. Everyone that knows me knows that my mom and my sister...are survivors. And then this last year I did pictures [from the previous Walk] and I said, "If one picture is worth a 1000 words, I hope an assortment of pictures will be worth $2000 so that I can walk again this year." And within two weeks time [I had the money].

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARDS & PEGGY /. KRESHEL

It seemed to some participants that connecting successfully with donors almost demanded a personal experience with the disease. For example, despite meeting survivors and making friends with other walkers and hearing their stories, Cheri never formed a connection to hreast cancer. Her motivation for walking, "to meet people and make friends," remained at the forefront, and she had difficulty reaching her fundraising goal. She attributed her prohlems in fundraising to being young (29). Perhaps she unwittingly provided an explanation of her failure to connect with fhe cause when she noted that she "did not know anyone with breast cancer. It hadn't hit my friends from college...People in their 20s are not getting breast cancer." Either Cheri was unwilling to ask or her potential donors were unwilling to give hased on their perception that breast cancer was not a disease that threatened them. Cheri never "joined" the 3-Day community; her experience seems to be a significant deviation from Avon's construction of the meaning of the Walk. Cheri's training team supplemented her account so she could walk, which may have enabled her to participate without the thoughtful reflection described by Susan and Linda, on why she was raising money for breast cancer, Katie, who was 30, also had fundraising difficulty. However, she said that after participating in the Walk she had a new perspective on the disease; she would use that knowledge to "back up" her future fundraising efforts: Katie: I am kind of quiet. I am not out there asking a stranger for a donation, it's just not me. So I had to stick with my little friends and family and word of mouth and that was the hardest part for me. But I think it will be easier this year because I feel like I can back it up. I mean, if you can't walk cind you can't crew, you can do your part by giving money. The complexity of the walker-donor-breast cancer relationships. The relationships among walkers, donors, and the breast cancer cause are complex and unsettled. Do donors give money to support the cause? To support the walker? Both? Or do they donate for some other reason? As noted, some walkers engaged in rigorous self-reflection as to why they were walking when moving beyond their comfort zone to ask people outside of friends and family to donate. This suggests, perhaps, that walkers believe their friends and family are supporting them as individuals, while others are supporting the cause through them. It also suggests that walkers see themselves as both raising money so they can participate in the physical challenge of the 3-Day Walk, and raising money to support breast cancer. Linda spoke to the conflation of these roles when she told me she had to stop thinking about donors as solely supporting her, because when they did not send her money, she took it personally. And Frankie, a hreast cancer survivor, was ready to send checks back to her supporters if she was physically unable to participate; she could not disentangle the cause with her role in the Walk.

AN AUDiENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMIMNICATION OV A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT THE AVON BHEAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

It seemed survivors often identified so closely with the cause, separating the two was difficult, and although we cannot know, it may have been difficult for sponsors to make distinctions as well. Clearly, walkers had preconceived notions, one might even say judgments, about how particular donors should behave, making assumptions regarding who would give and how much. This person could give ^ he has money. This person would give - she wants to support me. This person should give - her mother had breast cancer, she's my friend, and she's "welloff." Often these assumptions were wrong. According to Dixie, walkers could rarely guess with any degree of accuracy if or how much a person would give: Dixie: People who...maybe have been, not so much, affected by the disease, but just people who I know $100 is just not noticed if it is gone, have given me $20 and then another person who I know is really struggling but she is a survivor herself, gave me $250...I think the generosity of the people who are struggling hasn't been a surprise to me, it has been the others. Dixie also told the story of a walker friend who thought a man whose mother died from breast cancer would give generously. She was disappointed when his contribution was less than what she expected. In contrast, she was surprised when a group of secretaries gave her a large donation. Linda sent a letter to an uncle whose wife died of cancer. She said she thought his experience would make him more inclined to give, but she was wrong: Linda: [H]e lost his wife to lung cancer. So, I'm sure he was still a little bitter over that. But he was very, very negative. He has this feeling that...the researchers really aren't going to find a cure, because if they do they'll work themselves out of a job. And, so, they don't really want to find a cure, they just want to keep spending money. And it was hard to explain to him that this money wasn't going to research, it was going for these other things. But I'm sure his attitude was very painful from having lost his wife. And I knew from the first year not to even ask him [when the 3-Day began to support research, too]. These examples suggest the complexity of relationships donors have with the cause they are asked to support and with the participant. Ultimately, why donors give money - whether they are supporting the cause or supporting the walker - may not matter. The funds do both; they allow the participant to experience the Walk, and they sustain the breast cancer cause. It also may not matter that walkers' perceptions of their own roles are conflated. At times they think of themselves as, literally, walkers, raising money simply SO' they might take' part in the' physical challenge. At times they think of

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EDWARDS

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KRESHEL

their participation as symholic, physical action through which they and others support hreast cancer awareness, treatment, and research. These dual roles and motivations are naturally intertwined in the extreme nature of the event, and hecome even more entangled as walkers invite donors to share their stories. Asking contributors for their stories is another very practical suggestion from Avon. Give people a personal reason - remind them of the importance of the issue through their own experiences, urge them to make a personal connection, and they will give. Participants were issuing an invitation to join the community, to participate in the cause. "Share your stories with me," walkers said in their letters to potential contrihutors. "Let me walk for you, for someone you care ahout. Give me names to carry with me on the Walk. Let me represent your stories." It seemed to work. Walkers raised money, and the stories never stopped. Susan wrote the names her donors sent on a t-shirt. Diuring the Walk, I saw people wearing t-shirts and huttons with names and pictures of people with hreast cancer. Patients. Survivors. Memories. At the end of the first day, as I cheered walkers entering camp, I noticed a woman in a light pink t-shirt decorated with a message: "My reasons for walking." Small, hand-written names filled the front and hack. As suggested, the tactic of inviting contrihutors to share stories had powerful implications heyond the expediency of fundraising. Donor stories and the people participants came to know through those stories were added to the folklore of the Walk, woven into narratives to sustain the community, to hroaden its reach and add strength to its foundation. When Elizabeth's training group started to complain, frustrated at all the time given up, and sometimes at the pain, she motivated them with stories that came from donors, friends, and family: Elizaheth: I could only listen to them whine a little hit, and I would say, 'This is why we are doing it: hecause we have a good friend who is 45 and is dying of hreast cancer and we have to do this for her and for everybody else, and for you, and for our daughters' ... She used the stories to keep the group going. She shared her motivations all the while reiterating the 3-Day message: No whining. You are capable, healthy, others are not. The pain you are in does not even compare to the suffering a chemotherapy patient endures. You are walking for them. This was a mantra during the Walk. I heard this message over and over from participants, regardless of their personal motivations. The more stories walkers share, the more people they perceived themselves to be walking for. They were training with survivors, getting names and hearing stories from their donors and their friends' donors. Each story brought yet another face to the disease, and with each new face, the walkers' relationship to the cause was strengthened. Equally important, the accumulated stories raised awareness of the magnitude of the prohlem around which their community had formed.

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNIGATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EvENr. THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

Franklin: It was just incredible the type of stories I got from people that gave me money because, I hadn't known their mothers had breast cancer or died from breast cancer. And I did not really know it from knowing them, but they then donated and told me things like that. Breast cancer touches so many, Avon had provided the statistics: "This year, approximately 182,000 women in the United States will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer" (Pallotta Teamworks, 2001, p. 16), Newsletters had told the stories of yvalker survivors. But now, each participant had a list, sometimes a very long mental list, o{ people they know who have had experience with the disease-survivors and those who have not survived, mothers, sisters, children, spouses, friends, co-workers, Joyce: Since I have done this walk, I have come across people that are close to me who, either their mothers [or] friends are going through it now and it is hitting home, I am just hoping, and like I said praying, that,,,we raise enough money to make a difference. So that next year if I decide to walk that hopefully I won't have to know that somebody's mother is taking chemo and that somebody else's mother, who they opened up,..and then closed her right back up because they couldn't do anything. Throughout the walk, the participants retained their focus on individual goals, but knowledge, ritual, stories, and the accumulating folklore, seemed to change walkers' relationships with breast cancer, the Walk experience, and other walkers. They came to recognize themselves as part of a collective, the community of 3-Dayers, working together to "end breast cancer," Through their contributions of both money and stories, donors too became participants in the 3-Day, Although the donors were physically absent, walkers brought them into the community by sharing their stories, carrying their names in the Walk, and sending them thank you notes after the 3-Day, telling them about their experience, sending pictures, etc. The walker-donor relationship is yet another dimension of the 3-Day community that became part of the walker experience of the 3-Day, and walkers' relationship with the cause,
RQ4: How DO PARTICIPANTS IDENTIFY WITH THE SPONSORING COMPANY?

The 3-Day Walk was carefully orchestrated from beginning to end, from training t-shirt to post-ceremony follow-up, Avon was also visible during the Walk, though their commercial presence throughout the experience was understated. Free products were available at the concierge tent, and walkers used Avon soap, shampoo, lotion, deodorant, sunscreen, lip balm, etc, throughout the weekend. The products were utilitarian - no makeup, nail polish, or perfume, Avon did not use the 3-Day participant mailing list to send sales catalogs.

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARDS 6- PEGGY ]. KRESHEL

Still, despite Avon's visibility in the process, in the Walk itself, and most notably in the closing ceremony, where the corporate logo abounded and corporate representatives spoke to the crowd, Avon was something of an invisible sponsor. Walkers did not mention Avon in intervievis, journals, or focus groups. At the end of each interview, when participants had not

mentioned Avon, I asked their

^K^^I^^m^^m^^^^^^^^^K^m

impressions of the company as the ...despite Avon's visibility in the sponsor of the event. Each made a process, in the Walk itself, and most connection between Avon - the notably in tbe closing ceiemonj', "cosmetic company" - and breast cancer - a "women's issue," and wbere tbe corporate logo abounded although many credited Avon for and corporate representatives its philanthropy, they recognized spoke to tbe crowd, Avon was somethe company's involvement was tbing of an invisible sponsor. not purely altruistic. "I am sure they have some kind of belief in it [breast cancer]," said Susan, "but I would think it is a good, positive message to be involved with women and women's issues." Sharon connected the company's history of giving to women's causes to its current involvement in breast cancer issues, but also made a link to the positive publicity that comes from the event: Sharon: Avon has been sponsoring women's events for a long, long time...I used to play competitive golf so I have known that Avon has always been involved in women's athletics and been a big sponsor of that. But, I think they have probably gotten more press, because they don't just say the 3-Day, they say, oh, you are doing the Avon 3-Day... Everybody knows that it is associated with Avon... In focus groups I asked if it would make a difference to them if another company sponsored the 3-Day. In each case, the initial answer was no - the cause is the motivating factor. But after discussion, each group came to the conclusion that it just might make a difference - perhaps not who the sponsor was specifically, but in what type of company was the sponsor: Interviewer: Would it have mattered for your participation and involvement if it had been another company that had sponsored this event, Lauren: It wouldn't have mattered to me, no. Jaime: It would have mattered if they didn't do a good job. Elizabeth: Avon is women. Every woman knows about Avon. That is the message sent: Avon is a woman's compa-

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OE CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

ny and everybody probably has bought some Avon. Avon is a supporter of women, so to me that made it a httle more meaningful. I don't know, if Budweiser were to put it on, it wouldn't be the same. Other focus groups identified companies like beverage distributors and car manufacturers whose motives for sponsorship they might question. Some participants did identify with Avon on some level. As mentioned before, Elizabeth used Avon's patient assistance programs at work, and recently received an Avon grant to start a program to help women with breast cancer in her community. And Joyce said she had been an Avon salesperson years ago. So, while few participants expressed a sense of identity with Avon, the company, they did identify with the issue, and included Avon within the context of women and breast cancer supporters.
RQ5: WHAT VALUE UNKS DO PARTICIPANTS FORM BETWEEN THEMSELVES, THE COMPA-

NY, AND THE CAUSE?

Walkers trained, raised money, spread folklore, shared values, created rituals, formed an identity, adopted a cause. They constructed a reality. It is perhaps within the context of ie actual Walk itself that the value linkages developed, transformed, and nurtured throughout the process are most vividly apparent. The description of the Walk that follows is drawn primarily from conversations with participants, but also from my observations as a crew member. It explores le value links that formed between walkers, Avon, and breast cancer as well as the visible disconnects in the Walk experience.
VALUES CONFUCT? FUNDRAISINC AND SHARING MONIES; CENEROSITY.

Franklin: If you stop and think that somebody would actually pay - would have to collect a certain amount of money to do something like this. And it does hurt, you know, people do hurt their feet and get blisters and still want to go out and do it again...To see these women do 60 miles...it will blow your mind away. Day Zero. Registration. Walkers and crew came and went all day at Lake Lanier, watching the safety video, attending crew meetings, getting tent assignments, turning in that last little bit of money to meet (or exceed) their goals. The 3-Day organization had asked walkers to have all their contributions sent directly to the bank, to submit only last-minute donations on Day Zero. Instead, many walkers asked donors to send the money to them, and fhen submitted all the checks at once. They provided pragmatic reasons for ignoring protocol. They could send thank you notes immediately when checks arrived. There was a long lag time between check submissions and account updates; by collecting the checks themselves they could keep a tally without relying on the 3-Day bookkeepers. In that way, they knew at

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any given time "how much more money" they needed to he ahle to walk. So, on Day Zero, the line to the pledge tent was long, as walkers added to their accounts. Some found they did not have enough; others had more than enough. And so, they shared, Kristi: We got there right at check-in and we saw people in line [who needed] like $25 dollars, and I mean somehody might have that in their pocket, I mean they were $200 short and couldn't walk and they were looking for that extra money. And if you,,,had it, you could have handed it to them, Kristi and the other women in the focus group, all of whom were first-time walkers, had already suhmitted the money they raised before going to registration, hut Carly said next year she would collect checks herself, so she would he ahle to share her overages with other walkers. Franklin, who was walking for the second year, had pledges sent to him and was ahle to give to several people who were short. It gave him a good feeling to he ahle to help. He talked ahout the experience in his journal: Franklin: [W]hen I got in line [at registration] there were several people who needed money. And so I went through a process of asking how much they needed,,. And hottom line is, I was ahle to help out ahout four different people with pledges and that was very rewarding for me ,,,they were very, very grateful and thankful. Sharing funds was common among teams and walkers who knew each other, Cheri's team helped her meet the required amount, Kristi and her walker friends helped each other. If one person was short, another would make up the difference, Susan and her sister raised funds together, and Eiizaheth's group pooled money to ensure that everyone was ahle to participate. What distinguished Day Zero sharing was that it frequently was among strangers. This deviation from the 3-Day organization's guidelines is significant, Ohviously, from a purely economic perspective, it was hetter for the 3-Day and the cause if no one shared. That would mean more money per walker, especially if people "self-pledged," making up the shortage themselves. But walkers wanted to help other walkers participate, to help them remain in the community. This sharing was not universally accepted. Reflecting the amhiguity of the donor-walker-cause relationships, a participant who had walked in previous years said she might have heen hesitant to give others money that people had contributed to her. She was concerned donors might he offended that their contributions had not directly helped her. Clearly, her understanding of the donor relationship was that donors supported her, so she placed importance on how funds were credited. Nonetheless, the second year she

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

walked she, too, had shared so a friend could participate. It is unclear exactly why walkers were so generous. Perhaps they wanted to show the generosity others had shown them. Elizaheth said she did not realize "how much people care ahout causes. And you don't realize that until you take on one. How generous people can be." Sharon, too said she was "amazed" hy people's charity: Sharon: People's willingness to give just never ceases to amaze me. They give and give and give to this cause. And heing a survivor puts me that much closer to those people. They want to help me. They want to give more - time, money, whatever - towards it. Then too, perhaps the walkers identified with each other. Each knew how much training it had taken to prepare; "you weren't as lucky in fundraising as I was. I'll help you." In a sense, they were no longer strangers, hut "walkers," recognizing a shared identity. Susan said her experience made her appreciate the effort that goes into fundraising events, and she'll he more likely to support others' efforts: Susan: [P]eople in the past have asked me to support causes they have heen in - I will he much more giving in the future...I had a friend that ran a marathon for leukemia and I gave, I don't know what I gave her, mayhe $50.00, hut if I had known what she actually had to do I would have given her a lot more. Valuing the experience. That walkers "just wanted to help" others experience the Walk suggests that walkers perceived it to he THE event, a metaphor for all that had come before. They had been training for months. To not he ahle to do it would not only he a huge disappointment; but the 3Day experience would have been incomplete. As I listened to the participants, I couldn't help hut once again see the confusion of relationships: had the event itself surpassed the cause? As I listened to walkers talk about the 2001 New York 3-Day, originally scheduled for late Septemher, hut postponed to Octoher after the September 11 tragedy, the perception of the Walk as the culminating event became even more apparent. Walkers understood and supported the postponement, hut at the same time, empathized with people who had trained, and trained, and trained, and then did not know whether they would have the opportunity to walk. Adelaide: I feel sad [for the New York walkers]. Because I know how it feels. You have trained so hard and worked so hard for this and then to have it put off. That is how I would he here...it has to he hard and so my heart goes out to them.

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARIX 8- PEGGY J. KRESHEL

Valuing the effort, the pain, others' sacrifices: "I want to walk...I have to walk. " Again, reflecting the importance of the Walk itself, it seemed that while participating, that is "heing there" was important, it was very important to walk - every mile. Franklin noted that walkers "hurt their feet and get hlisters and still want to go out and do it again," Walkers walked through the pain, pulled muscles, hurt knees, strains, etc. Despite assurances by Avon that being "swept" (picked up along the route and driven to the campsite) was acceptable and even encouraged if a walker was having problems completing the miles, most participants in this study trained vigorously to avoid the sweep vans. By the end of the day some walkers were in tears, but determined to finish and go on the next day. At the end of the first day, I was walking through camp, helping people put up tents, and found a woman leaning against a truck full of gear, tears streaming down her very red face. She looked like she might collapse at any moment, I asked her if I could help, and she was incoherent. She calmed a hit, and I understood that she felt nauseous, was exhausted, and was afraid to move. Frozen, she had been unable to locate her gear or her tent site, I offered to take her to the medical tent. She began crying again, saying she was afraid they would not let her walk the next day, I gave her Gatorade and suggested she may just need rest, but should seek medical attention. Another walker approached, trying to help, "I felt the same way about an hour ago," she encouraged, "but after a visit to the medical tent and a nice hot shower I feel much better," Meanwhile, I flagged down a golf cart driven by a medical crew person, who stopped, comforted the woman, said she was probably dehydrated, and took her to the medical tent. She kept repeating, "I have to walk tomorrow, I want to walk, I have to walk, I have to walk," By the time she got on the golf cart she was calmer, but still adamant about walking, I met another woman waiting in line at the medical tent at the end of the first day. She sought preventative medical attention to "hot spots," potential blisters, on her heels. Her tentmate was with her, "You don't have to walk all the miles tomorrow," said the tentmate, "I don't want to leave you and the girls," the woman replied, "I can do this," The medical crew stayed busy, bandaging, cleaning, vvrrapping walkers' wounds, I heard a nurse tell a woman, "You really shouldn't walk on this, but I know you will, so just be careful, and take a sweep van tomorrow if you need to," Even participants who were physically unable to complete all 60 miles were determined to walk as many as possible, A doctor had warned Joyce she "wasn't in shape [to do the Walk]," Still, she set a goal: Joyce: I just know that I am not physically fit to do the whole 20, but you never know, you could get in that group with all those people and just sort of,, ,the time could fade away, depends on how many hills you have. So, I am saying I am going to do 10, but I don't know. In the end, she exceeded the miles she expected to walk. She wrote to her

AN AUDIENGE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OuTREAGH EVENT. THE AVON RREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

supporters: Even though my doctor advised me against the Walk, I decided to participate at a 50% effort. Yes, I planned to walk 10 miles a day instead of 20.1 figured I could do that much even if it hin-t. I am proud to say that I walked 12plus miles on Friday, 8-plus miles on Satin-day, and 15 miles on Sunday... Why were walkers so passionate about completing every mile of the walk? Perhaps they felt a sense of obligation, a commitment to those who gave money. Joyce's letter to her donors and Frankie's desire to send checks hack to her contributors if she did not walk seem to suggest this. Although donors did not pledge dollars per mile and money went to the cause no matter how many miles the walkers completed, walkers linked their performances to donors' expectations. Then too, the 3-Day experience seemed incomplete if walkers could not experience the Walk fully - walking the entire route. Just as in training, the route was where the folklore was shared, the rituals performed. It was not simply a matter of getting from point A to point B. It was a path along which the 3-Day community was not only strengthened, but also added new dimensions. To miss it would be to miss being a part ofthe community of which you'd heen a member of oh-so-many months, to miss the "butterfly guy," the Harley riders, the dancing: Adelaide: This one guy, butterfly guy was just crazy. He, this is his 22nd walk and he wears butterfly wings and rides along beside the bikers and he is just, he was so campy and bizarre and we had so much fun with him. Every stop we would look for Butterfly Guy and it just became a joke. Especially me, I would look for him, "Oh, there is Butterfly Guy"...And also the traffic guys, these Harley guys that were all along the way.^^ We just loved those guys. Each of us kind of had our favorite one. There is this one guy who made us jump up real high to give him high fives as we were going. Really the funniest one - he actually became somewhat of a celebrity - was this sort of burly Harley guy with a bandana and leather gloves and he would, every time he saw us coming, he would scream at the top of his lungs, he would say "Wassssssup." So that kind of became our thing and I would scream at him too... But stuff like that really kept us going. There was disco music along the way. At one point...one ofthe walkers in our group...I looked over and she was doing the electric slide. I became like the dancing queen. Every time we would stop and hear music, we would just dance. It just lightened us up as we went.

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWAMS

& PEGGY J.

KRESHEL

And finally, the 3-Day organization told walkers that the pain they feel is comparatively small as they walk to raise money for people who suffer much more through surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, treatment, for hreast cancer. "No whining," was a favorite reminder when a walker talked ahout aches, pains, and tiredness. For example, on the second day, when we aw^oke to rain, I listened as a group of w^alkers prepared themselves for the soggy morning ahead. At first they groaned about the conditions and potential blisters, but finally, one woman said, "Okay, whining over for today. If they can go through chemo, then we can do this." "That's right," said another, "this is nothing compared to chemo." Immediately, the mood of the conversation changed, and the walkers departed, laughing at themselves in their rain ponchos, and checking their supplies of dry socks for later. Valuing community mores: safety, compassion, generosity, KINDNESS. Walkers had a very particular construction of appropriate behavior in the 3Day community. Walkers keep going, in pain or not. They have trained, as Patta's story about the man who did not "train hard enough" illustrated. Walkers are kind. And, walkers do not rim. They do not race. They walk. Walkers noticed when others violated these community standards: Linda: [S]ome people took it upon themselves as heing a competition. They wanted to be in the camp first and...they wanted to outdo the other... To me, that is not the spirit of what we were trying to do... According to Linda and Dixie, some walkers behaved competitively - a noticeable anomaly within the 3-Day commimity. The people I interviewed expressed no need to compete with others regarding walking or fundraising, although each had personal goals. Morgan said the Walk appealed to her "competitive" nature, but she described the competition in terms of meeting the challenges to be physically ready and to raise money, not in a desire to raise the most money or beat everyone to camp. Dixie, who had run competitively, said she had to consciously make a distinction between the nature of the 3-Day and other events like marathons, and was bemused by the people who seemed to be in a contest: Dixie: I had to get used to the idea that it is not a race and it has been interesting for me to see that there are people who are a bit competitive about it... I did a training walk with a big group of people... And as you would expect, we did a fifteen mile walk, and within half a mile everybody was pretty spread out - which was good. But there were a couple who were just really, like obviously wanted to be first. And they had done the Walk last year and apparently were one of the first ones in camp and they were very proud of that, you know. And although I respect that, in a way, I think it is not a great attitude to have for this.

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

Avon clearly stated the Walk was not a race. This was, in part, a safety issue. Almost 3,000 people travel along narrow neighborhood roads and busy highways. The safety video - required viewing for all 3-Day participants, walkers, and crew - emphasized rules for safety: No running, Walkmans, or cell phones. Watch the road. Watch for each other. Be kind. Avon stressed that every walker, from the first to the last, is cheered as s/he comes into camp; there was no reward for finishing early. As a matter of fact, walkers who came in early often worked, putting up tents and helping their slower peers set up camp. So, why did they compete? Linda did not seem to notice people deviate from community norms the first year she walked, but noticed a difference in the last two Walks, attributing the change to the number of people involved, Linda: I found,,,an influx of people with different ideas about why we were there,,,[P]art of what the Avon 3-Day Walk and community is about ,,,has been lost, maybe in the sheer numbers of people that are involved these days. Perhaps the nature of the Walk draws people who are naturally competitive. It is also possible that walkers who competed during the Walk had also trained in a competitive manner, and had not developed the rituals and values shared by other participants, Avon also stressed courtesy and kindness in the safety video, newsletters, and emails: Linda: Kindness is the watchword and the word that they always want us to keep in mind. Kindness to your tentmate, kindness to other walkers, kindness to the people that we passed along the way. Participants - walkers and crew - cheered each other, carried gear, and shared band-aids, dry socks, food, water, cell phones, and toothpaste, I gave my alarm clock to two women on a pit-stop team who were afraid they would not wake up in time to make their 4:00 a,m, crew call. Needs were met through the kindness of others. After rain Friday night soaked much of our gear, the Stage Crew worked together - some of us staying to fulfill our crew responsibilities, while others took the group's wet sleeping bags and towels to the laundromat to dry, A woman in a tent near ours loaned another neighbor a spare tarp to place under her tent to keep the damp ground from seeping into her tent floor Satinrday night. Crew and walkers helped each other set up tents, especially for walkers who came into camp late, Lauren was relieved when she finally made it to camp and found her campsite already prepared: Lauren: The last night we spent up there, the tents had been rained on the night before,,,[W]e got there after some of the other people did and [they] had put up our tent for

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARDS & PECGY J. KRESHEL

us and wiped out all the water.. .And so we just put all our stuff in there and went right to sleep. It was wonderful to see our tent was already ready because these people had supported us and been there for us. And that is the way we felt the whole time because there was so much support and encouragement from everybody. I saw one crew person go through the food line time after time to get dinner for tired or hurting walkers. When I saw him come through the line after at least three trips, I said, "I hope you are going to get to eat some of that." "This one's for me," he said. But as I watched him walk toward a table, I saw him stop a woman limping toward the food tent and offer her his plate. He then went to the drink line, got a cup of tea, and took it to her table. Then, back to the food line. At camp, walkers and crew constantly expressed appreciation for each other. As I passed walkers in camp, they would smile at me and say, "Thanks, Crew." To which I replied, "Thank you." It was a 3-Day ritual performed over and over dinring the Walk. These kind gestures embodied the shared value of "human kindness" throughout the community. In a journal entry, Eileen said she was "amazed" at how people behaved in the 3-Day environment in comparison to other large-scale events: Eileen: I am just so amazed at how nice all the people are. It is like I read somewhere in the Avon 3-Day brochin-e, it is the way you wish the world were every day...This lady had to go to the bathroom really bad and everybody let her in front of them in the port-a-potties.. .You know that if we were at a Hawks game or a Braves game, that would not have happened. It is just amazing how everybody gets along and every thing... it is like you wish every day could be like this. "You wish every day could be like this," she said, and yet, it is a grueling experience. Eileen said in her journal that she was sore for several days after the 3-Day. It was unlikely she wished for the 20-mile walk, but rather, for the courtesy and consideration she experienced. Lived reality, relationships, values, community come together in a finale. As the Walk ended, the community came together in a closing ceremony, a spectacle rich in symbolism and emotion. Walkers. Walker survivors. The empty circle. Donors, and those who came only in memories, physically absent but yet somehow present. Crew. Distinguished by the colors of our shirts. Supporters surrounded the community - becoming part of it. Whatever motivations each person hegan with, whatever physical capabilities, together we stood, individually constructing the meaning of the Walk, celebrating physical accomplishments and the millions of dollars raised in the name of breast cancer. What hegan months earlier as an individual decision was now a community united for a cause:

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EvEm) THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

Patta: [S]iirvivors coming dov^rn the center of that platform in their pink shirts ,,, I just cry thinking ahout it. And the walkers holding,,,np one shoe,,. It is such a sainte of love. And that is hasically what the Avon 3-Day means to me. It is just telling people that we are going to heat cancer. We gathered around common values and a common cause, visible throughout the 3-Day Walk, At the end of the first day, as I cheered walkers entering camp, I noticed three women, each wearing a personalized shirt. In the center was a woman's picture, "Walking for our sister," the shirts said, A fourth woman walked with them. She, too had a personalized shirt: "Their sister," it said, helow a photo of fhe other three women. Another woman in a bright pink wig wore a large hutton with a picture on it. She said it was her friend who should he walking wifh her, hut was in the hospital after a cancer recurrence, I saw a man wearing a t-shirt late on the second day. On the front was a picture. On the hack, "In Memory of Grace, 1960-2002," In fhe end, all these stories came togefher, a visual affirmation of the folklore gathered one-hy-one din-ing the Walk and the months hefore. Standing among fhese stories, participants felt a part of something important: Mary Katherine: I think it was the first time in those three days that I actually realized how many people had come together to do fhe same thing. It was just kind of an overwhelming experience to know that that many peoples' lives have heen affected in some shape or form, and I was just one person helping to take on such a hig canse. As we drew together to celebrate, I realized fhis spectacle symholized the experience. Each day, walkers started the route, each person or group choosing how to proceed, hut following the signs, staying wifhin "bounds," While some might stray to a coffee shop or restaurant for refreshment, or a "real" hathroom, they came hack to fhe course planned hy Avon, They started from the same place, although not at the same time. They came to this destination. The ceremony ended. The colors hlended, walkers, crew, survivors, spectators collectively enlhracing this shared moment. And it all hegan with Avon's careful coordination, communication. More than simply information on how to get from one point to another, individual walkers used fhe 3-Day guidelines to create not only personal meaning hut shared meaning with each ofher, wifh fheir supporters, with hreast cancer. The 3-Day experience opened np a space in which people could come together to talk ahout their experiences with the disease, "chase down fheir demons," express their anger and their hope, and feel they are doing something ahout it, Togefher, they we constructed shared experiences, shared values, and rituals.

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARDS

B- PEGGY J.

KRESHEL

Conclusion
This study is located on the cusp of change in puhlic relations practice, research, and theory. While critics and scholars have taken companies to task for creating an overly commercial society, consumer-hased cause-related corporate outreach efforts have become increasingly popular. Corporations now routinely blend tbeir pbilantbropic efforts with highly visible marketing campaigns (Salmon & Sun, 2002) going beyond their roles as producers and service providers to engage their publics as partners in dealing with social issues. The increasing volume of the corporate voice in social issues suggests a shift in its impact on our culture beyond the perpetuation of a capitalist economy. In addition, tbe emergence of extreme events like the Avon 3-Day and AIDS Rides that require a significant fundraising and physical commitment signals a considerable change in the way causes, corporations, and the public raise money to effect social change. Participants, including the "regular people," the canse and corporate sponsors, use the events to "make a statement" about the cause and show their commitment to it. This is a meaningful change in how our culture addresses social issues, and not one tbat all view as positive. Literature on cause-related corporate outreacb is cumbersome. A multitude of terms with inconsistent definitions creates a conceptual confusion that is exacerbated by the literature's multi-disciplinary natiu-e; studies derive from marketing, advertising, public relations, philanthropy, business, etc. (Adkins, 1999; Schreiber & Lenson, 1994). Much of the existing research is atheoretical, focusing primarily on case studies to arrive at guidelines for "successful" corporate outreacb programs (Adkins, 1999; Pringle & Thompson, 1999; Sagawa & Segal, 2000), and survey-based consumer-effects research that does little to facilitate understanding of the complexities of corporate-audience relationships within a larger cultural context (Barone, Miyazaki, & Taylor, 2000; Harvey, 2001; Webb & Mohr, 1998). Much of current public relations theory and corresponding research rests upon a systems approach which has long dominated the discipline but fails to adequately address issues related to public relations practice (Grunig, 2001). More recent applications of different paradigmatic approacbes offer promising theoretical foundations from which to study corporate communication (L'Etang & Pieczka, 1996; Totb & Heath, 1992). However, these new approaches are limited if scholars neglect the audience and focus only upon the speaker and the message. Puhlic relations theory should welcome the contributions of cultural studies scbolars wbo study communication witbin a larger social context, also privileging the audience as active in the communication process (Carey, 1975; Condit, 1989; Fiske, 1986; Newcomb, 1984; Radway, 1984). We began this study with the theoretical understanding that an orgeinization's communication is purposeful, intended to persuade, and the audience, or public, is active in tbe communication process. We brought with us to the study the epistemological and ontological assumptions of cultural studies; multiple realities are socially constructed, constantly changing

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVONBHEAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

(Berger & Luckmann, 1967), and exist within a complex social world (Carey, 1975; Geertz, 1973). In methodological terms, this necessitated that participants' voices be privileged above our own (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Kasper, 1994). Thus, this study is an important step to understanding the cultural interactions and meaning-making experiences inherent in the communication process. It challenges dominant public relations research methodologies that tend to isolate elements of the social relationships existing between and among the corporation, cause, and participating publics. Instead, we used a complex qualitative methodological design to capture the 3-Day experience across time and from different vantage points. Each method privileged the participants as experts, as we collaborated to understand the meaning of the event (Kasper, 1994). This triangulated design helped us construct the experience from multiple perspectives, and increased the trustworthiness of the findings (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992). This final section discusses the findings and their implications. We also consider the limitations of this study and avenues for future research.
A REVIEW OF THE FINDINGS

Participants' relationships with corporate sponsor/cause. Two research questions spoke specifically to the audience-corporate-cause relationships: How do participants identify with the cause, and how do they identify with the sponsoring company? Participants seemed to identify with the values inherent in the Avon 3-Day, constructing 3-Day walker identities consistent with commitment and kindness. However, Avon's corporate identity seemed to be subsumed by the "Avon 3 -Day" identity. Participants ceased to think about it as a corporation and started to see it solely in context of the event. As the focus group discussion indicated, participants might have thought about Avon's corporate identity more consciously if Avon had been less successful in making a clear corporate connection to the breast cancer cause. While Elizabeth's comment, "Avon is a supporter of women, so to me that made it a little more meaningful," may seem to contradict walkers' lack of identification with Avon, it is noteworthy that she described her connection to the company in terms of her Avon Foundation grant, and use of Avon's services for breast cancer patients. And, Sharon, a competitive golfer, had participated in other Avon events for women. Avon's history as a "women's company involved in women's issues" resonated with her. Both Elizabeth and Sharon's identifications with the company were inextricably linked to Avon's "issue identity" rather than its identity as a cosmetic company. And, although Joyce had been an Avon representative years ago, it was almost as if I reminded her of that connection with my question. In the corporate setting where profit guides companies' perceptions of success, the inability to gauge the impact of Avon's breast cancer initiatives on the "bottom line" can be problematic. In some sense, Avon does not appear to gain anything as a company. Is this cause-related corporate outreach worth the effort? Given the apparent lack of consumer identification found in this study, corporations should carefully evaluate their objectives

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARDS

& PEGGY ].

KRESHEL

for undertaking a cause-related effort and their expectations for involvement. If they aie expecting higher profitability, they may be disappointed. Yet, such communication has multiple purposes, and Avon's involvement may have implications for future messages (Perelman, 1979), Quite possibly, Avon is building goodwill that could help the company in a potential crisis situation. Further, the company's messages about breast cancer seem to be accepted by the Walk participants, who embrace the company's "solutions" to the disease. Corporations must evaluate what they want to say about the cause through their involvement. Walkers clearly identified with the 3-Day Walk as an event, and the extreme physical and fundraising requirements of the 3-Day Walk would suggest that participants identify with the breast cancer cause. Certainly, that was true of many: survivors, activists, friends, and family of people diagnosed with breast cancer, Sharon described herself as a breast cancer activist, as did Elizabeth, both of them survivors, Frankie and Adelaide said they probably would not have participated had they not been breast cancer survivors. They came to the Walk with an existing connection to breast cancer, Couldry's (2000) observation, however, reminds us that walkers enter the experience from many different points in their lives: Each person carries with them an individual history of reflection which cannot be reduced to shared cultural patterns. Partly pure accident, and partly structured, this history is the trace of that person's perceiving, absorbing, interacting, reflecting, retelling, reflecting again, and so on, a sequence endured by the person alone, (Couldry, 2000) Some participants used the Walk to meet personal needs that had nothing to do with breast cancer, Linda used the Walk to build her self-confidence; Katie walked to feel better about herself after a divorce; and Dixie and Morgan both walked for the physical and fundraising challenge. But, despite each person's "individual biography," most, with the exception of Cheri, seemed to develop a connection, that is, to identify with breast cancer as they moved deeper into the 3-Day experience. The cause became the central characteristic of their walker identities as they articulated their involvement, interacted with survivors, and collected breast cancer stories from other walkers and their donors. The physical demands of the event came to symbolize their commitment to the cause. Indeed, their relationships within the context of the community became conflated as they constructed their walker identities in relation to the cause and the event.
PARTICIPANTS' UVED PERCEPTION, CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNITY, AND VALUE UNKS.

Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things in common. What they

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION INACA USE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT. THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

must have in common...are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge - a common nnderstanding - likemindedness as sociologists say. Such things cannot be passed physically from one to another like bricks; they cannot be shared as persons would share a pie by dividing it into physical pieces. (Dewey, 1916, p. 5-6) The remaining research questions asked about the participants' lived experience of the Walk, how they express their sense of community, and what value links they develop with the company, cause, and each other. The story told here is, in essence, the story of the experience and the creation of a community and its values. Because these concepts - lived experience, sense of community, and values - are so inextricably intertwined, they are discussed here together. As Dewey (1916) observed, common understanding that enables us to live in a community "cannot be passed physically from one to another," but is a product of social interaction. Condit (1985) argues that it takes both speaker and audience working together for community to emerge. Avon, in its speaker role, shaped the community framework through guidelines that defined the issue - breast cancer; shared values, like commitment and kindness - and did so by artfully crafting its communication to speak to participants. In its funding allocations, Avon dened ways in which to address a troubling issue. Funds raised went toward helping people who cannot afford health care receive diagnostic and treatment services. Funding also went toward research to help cure the disease. Avon then dened how people could take participatory action for the breast cancer cause by providing an outlet in the form of the Walk. Walkers chose to accept (or understand) these definitions and "solutions" for breast cancer, as signified by their participation. In "reformulating the shared heritage" (Condit, 1985, p. 289) of breast cancer, Avon shaped a context through which participants, even those with little connection to the disease, came to identiiy with the cause, transforming personal motivations, when necessary, and as such, defining themselves within the 3-Day community. As noted, Avon painstakingly orchestrated the Walk from beginning to end. For example, Avon suggested that the way for walkers to physically prepare themselves was to train with other walkers. The outcome of this suggestion went well beyond the expediency of helping walkers become physically fit. It created an environment in which walkers talked, shared stories and rituals, created friendships, bonded. "We have so much fun on those [training] walks. We talk about everything under the sun," said Adelaide. "There is a lady that walks around Stone Mountain who will be at the 3-Day Walk and she has one leg" (Eileen). "To hear her stories about thinking that it was going to be her last Christmas..." (Mary Katherine). Avon also advised walkers that the way to reach potential contributors was through making connections to breast cancer - sharing their personal breast cancer stories, and inviting donors to tell their own. In this process.

HEIDI HATFIELD EDWARDS

& PEGGY J.

KRESHEL

walkers had to carefully reflect on why they were walking. This introspection frequently strengthened their commitment to the issue, Linda noted, "I had to really explain what I was doing and where I was coming from," Then, participants listened to stories from their donors. In following these pragmatic guidelines for training and fundraising, walkers shared folklore, values, beliefs. Now, breast cancer statistics were people. Aunt Susan, Tommy's teacher. My boss's granddaughter. It is at this point walkers began to truly share the community. Again, because walkers acknowledged that they used Avon's guidelines, it would be tempting to view those guidelines simply as tools for transmitting information (Carey, 1975), But, as this study has repeatedly shown, to do so would miss the complexity of "what's really going on" people creating a symbolic world dened by and defining them. In its speaker role, the Avon 3-Day also provided vivid display - from the powerful prose of newsletters and brochures, to the antics of the butterfly man and the Harley guys, to the pageantry of tbe closing ceremony - by which participants were entertained, and judged Avon on its performance (Condit, 1985), For example, in a focus group discussion, participants said that while it did not matter to them that Avon was the sponsor, it would have mattered, in a negative sense, had they not "done it well," which I interpreted to be a judgment on Avon's display - how well it went about producing the Walk and how well the Walk was organized. Beyond the obvious shared value of the commitment to breast cancer, the most explicit value linking participants in and to their community was kindness. The 3-Day was a world in which people perform random acts of kindness for others, Linda and Eileen spoke about kindness at length in their journals, and others mentioned it as one of the highlights of their experiences during the actual walk, "Kindness is the watchword" (Linda), "It is the way you wish the world were every day" (Eileen), Other strong values emerged as participants talked about their experiences. They talked about commitment, and proved their commitment by giving their time and energy to train and raise money, and finally, to walk, even through pain. Walkers talked about the generosity, support, and the compassion of friends, family, and donors, and showed their own generosity by sharing donations with people who wanted to walk, but bad been unable to raise sufficient funds. These values all were integral to the formation of the 3-Day community. And of course, walkers talked about activism, the importance of having a cause, the power of the individual to make a difference - for breast cancer, another cause, or the community in general. Walkers shared Pallotta's "I'mpossible Dream" of taking social action: It is my dream,,,witbin my lifetime,,,to bave significantly impacted the way that Americans spend their discretionary time so that the pursuit of positive social change, through brave individual action based in kindness and compassion, becomes a natural part of every American's life, (Dan Pallotta, 2001, p, xv)

AN AUDIENCE ImEHPRETATiON OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCER 3-DAY WALK

IMPUCATIONS

while it is estimated that special events procure relatively small proportions of total revenues, they are thought also to serve as public relations and awareness tools. It is often in the preparation of events, as well as participation in them, that personal networks are enhanced and a sense of community engendered. (Wharf Higgins & Lauzon, 2003, p. 263-264) This study has implications for the study of relationships between corporations and active publics, particularly in the context of corporate involvement in social issues. The increasing presence ofthe corporate voice in social issues places those companies engaging in cause-related corporate outreach outside their traditional domain, and into the "business" of shaping socially constructed values. These findings suggest that within the context of their relationships with a cause-related corporate outreach effort, audience members construct their realities, define their identities, and shape a community based on the corporation's communication. The audience interprets meaning, but those interpretations are restricted by frames of reference (Acosta-Alzuru, 1999; Condit, 1989; Fiske, 1986). In ihe Walk experience, the folklore and rituals walkers create outside of Avon provide another powerful frame of reference - shared realities - which they use to build their relationships within the 3-Day community. This implies the company's messages about breast cancer resonate within a larger social context. Striving to be good corporate citizens and working to "better" society, corporate involvement in causes raises both practical and ethical issues. Companies thinking about creating a corporate outreach program should seek to understand the role they play in constructing community values about the issues they choose to address. First, as suggested by these findings and earlier case studies (Adkins, 1999; Sagawa & Segal, 2000), successful campaigns depend upon how well company values match the values of both the cause and society. The Avon Walk fiourishes in part, because the company ensures its key messages are reinforced by walkers' interactions within a larger cultural frame. Although Avon's corporate identity became hidden behind its social identity, this only served to heighten its credibility. But, if Avon is involved in the Walk to improve its place in the market, this study suggests such strategy is failing - at least among the study participants. Again, as suggested earlier, companies should reflect on the reasons for their participation, understanding why they chose to become involved, and what outcomes they expect. Companies engaging the public in their cause-related corporate outreach efforts have a weighty responsibility when they choose an issue and partner with a cause. They have to recognize that they can play a role in defining social values. Certainly, they must choose a cause that matches their corporate ethos. But they must also examine the societal implications

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of their prescribed "solutions" to an issue. That is, when companies designate how funds are used, or decide on a partner in their efforts, they implicitly prescribe how society sbould address an issue. What cause a company chooses to take on and the corre- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ sponding solution may appear to This study marks an important tranbe pragmatic decisions, but can bave significant social impor- sition in public relations research, tance. Tbese events reacb thou- using cultural studies based theory, sands of people who not only par- and studying the public as an active, ticipate, but give. Companies have integral part of tbe communication tbe potential to powerfully sbape process. It suggests tbe value of contbe public agenda; that potential is at the root of much social criti- tinued research on tbe social pbecism. If events like these are only nomenon of cause-related events, for "safe" issues, other important and on cultural investigation into causes are neglected (Lieberman, tbe relationsbips between corpora2001). Companies need to be self- tions and tbeir publics. reflective, as well as ready for and responsive to criticism that might ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ B I ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ H I ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ I arise, having a clear understanding of their intentions and their contributions to the social dialog surrounding the cause. Adoption of a cultural studies approach to study public relations has important implications for public relations theory and researcb methodology. Grunig (2001) calls for scholars to offer alternative theories rather than simply to criticize existing ones. This study offers a cultural frame from whicb scholars can address the corporate speaker and the audience as active participants in the communication process, and in so doing, can ask and answer broader social/cultural questions. Methodologically, a cultural approacb suggests researchers must use interpretive techniques to uncover webs of meaning found in human social interaction (Geertz, 1973). While this paradigm does not preclude understanding communication as information transmission (Carey, 1975), it emphasizes the complexities of communication within a cultural framework, and thus, necessitates the use of naturalistic qualitative methods to better understand the complexities of the relationships built and maintained by tbe use of public relations. To study these relationships as they function in society enables us to see tbe intricacies that might be lost if tbose relationsbips are parsed out and isolated from tbeir context. As Robert E. Park once wrote: If tbe study of culture is to reveal what makes life for individuals or peoples either significant and exciting or merely dull, what are the kinds of facts most likely to disclose this vital secret? Undoubtedly, the most revealing portions are the candid comments of the peoples studied on their own lives." (Robert E. Park, 1934, xviii)

AN AUDIENCE INTERPRETATION OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION IN A CAUSE-RELATED CORPORATE OUTREACH EVENT: THE AVON BREAST CANCXR 3-DAY WALK

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

The most obvions limitations of this study are that it is a case study limited to a single event - the Atlanta 2001 Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day - and emphasizes a single public, the walkers. Although I recruited participants who were diverse in age and race, the nature of the Walk limited the numher of men in the study (only 3% of walkers in the Atlanta 3-Day were men). This study marks an important transition in puhlic relations research, using culttu-al studies based theory, and studying the public as an active, integral part of the communication process. It suggests the value of continued research on the social phenomenon of cause-related events, and on cultural investigation into the relationships between corporations and their publics. The insertion of cause-related events into our culture merits investigation into the cultviral values that make extreme events marketable. The study of other extreme events, including 3-Days in other cities and other cause-related events like AIDS Rides, is an ohvious extension of this work. Two issues are immediately apparent: How do cause-related events work, and what are the ethical implications for the causes? Such studies can provide additional understanding of the communities that form around these activities. Of particular interest might be events for less-visihle causes, such as adoption and suicide prevention, or the most extreme of extreme events. Critics say companies choose "safe" issues; how do participants choose which issues to support? Is it the issue or is it the adventure or challenge of the event that draws participation? "Why not train hecause you want to train and write a check because you want to write a check?" (Sweeney, 2005), The intention of this study was to focus upon the audience, which is seldom explored in traditional puhlic relations research. But, the value that can be derived from studying corporate communication from the speaker perspective should not be overlooked. Analysis of corporate discoxu"se is a direction for future study on a number of dimensions. How does the organization construct a participant in its discourse? What audience subjectivities does the organization speak to in its communication with participants (e,g,, recruitment materials speak to "regular people" who want to do something for society)? Such textual analysis could answer questions regarding the tensions between the individual goals of participants and the social goals of the event, lending insight into some participants' "subversive" behavior (e,g,, sharing money at registration) and mixed motives for participation. Additionally, textual analysis may also show how the organization constructs a community, A careful analysis of the language it uses to communicate with participants, and the participants' language in describing their experiences, may allow us to observe links in the communication process. The complex web of relationships identified here suggests numerous opportunities for future research. For example, donors are active participants in the community-building process, and the meaning they give their involvement is a dimension that promises to clarify relationships among participants, donors, and the cause. Do donors give to the participant? To the cause? Do they think about the event sponsors? What is the impact of a

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corporation's discourse on the multi-layered publics, from participants, to donors, neighbors, and townsfolk who see participants training, the larger community in which the event takes place, and the people who read, watch, and listen to corresponding media coverage? Research addressing these multiple publics may also add depth to understanding the dynamic between.a company's corporate identity and its philanthropic identity created through cause-related events. Such study may help us better understand whether corporate involvement in social issues is of value to the company. This is especially important for the Avon 3-Day. As I was completing this study, Avon announced it would no longer sponsor the 3-Day Walks (Avon Products, 2005). After four years, the company decided to withdraw from its partnership with Pallotta because of shareholder concern about the costs of the Walk (Crary, 2002). The company later announced a strikingly similar two-day event series. The competition from Avon's new event precipitated the fall of Pallotta Teamworks. Nevertheless, the 3-Day event series lives on with multiple sponsors and the Susan G. Komen Foundation as the primary beneficiary. Avon's decision to withdraw its name from the original 3-Day is significant at this time of heightened public scrutiny of cause-related corporate outreach efforts. Although thousands of people have participated, and millions of dollars were raised for the breast cancer, Avon was criticized from within and chose to listen to their shareholders and discontinue this fundraising opportunity. Also, the findings of this study indicate Avon was not getting immediate brand-loyalty value from its participation, at least from tbe walkers' perspective, though the value of good will generated, botb current and future, is difficult to judge. Walkers talked about the company only when prompted, and rarely discussed Avon products. Did Avon know this, and did it impact Avon's decision to withdraw? What were Avon's expectations when it became involved in the Walk and with breast cancer, and how did those expectations influence its decision to shift fundraising strategies? Finally, research should examine the influence cause-related corporate outreach events have on the social issues they address. What benefits do cause-related organizations derive from corporate sponsorship? What does corporate involvement mean to those social issues and the beneficiary organizations? What happens when a company decides to pull away from the social issue or change direction? And, how does corporate involvement impact individual involvement in social issues? Extending this study to areas described above will contribute to our understanding of corporationpublic relationships within the context of our complex cultural world, the meaning publics give to their relationships with corporations, and the social impact of corporate involvement in social issues.

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Endnotes
1, In what is credited as the first national, consumer-based giving program, American Express organized a campaign to help renovate the Statue of Liberty in 1983, For each dollar consumers charged to their American Express cards, the company donated a penny to the renovation fund. The program sparked the now oft-used term "cause-related marketing" or CRM (Varadarajan & Menon, 1988; see also, Ebenkamp & Stark, 1999), With the exception of the Avon 3-Day, Pallotta's catalog of events had no specific corporate sponsors, nor did Pallotta link a product to an issue. Rather, the company's business was producing extreme fundraising events, and marketing those events and the causes they benefit, Corporate citizenship is defined as how well organizations meet responsibilities placed on them by their stakeholders (Maignan, Ferell, & Huit, 1999), In contrast to more positivistic audience research approaches like uses and gratifications research that focus on the individual as the unit of analysis, du Gay et, al, (1997) expanded upon Johnson's (1986/87) original four points in the circuit of culture to study the Sony Walkman as a cultural product. The five points, or moments, include: representation, identity, consumption, production, and regulation. Each moment is interdependent of the other moments. The circuit demonstrates the complexity of the cultural process and offers researchers a way to construct studies to include all or parts of ths) process while recognizing the entire circuit, In May 2002, bowing to shareholder and public criticism that too little of the proceeds have gone to breast cancer (net proceeds averaged 63% of monies raised), Avon announced it would withdraw as sponsor of the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk, breaking ties with event producer Pallotta Teamworks, but fulfill its obligation to the remaining 2002 Walks, Two months later it announced a new fundraising event - the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer - a two-day walk strikingly similar to the 3-Day, The net donation to charity from the walks was $116,979,000, or 62,82% of the $186 million raised, The study was conceived and designed by the co-authors; however, the research and analysis reported here were undertaken solely by the first author The second author had participated in two Avon Breast Cancer 3-Days prior to this study. Thus, that author also engaged in the bracketing of subjectivities, as discussed, in providing insight and guidance drawn from those experiences throughout the research and writing process. Recognizing their role in the research process, interpretive researchers frequently present their research in first person. We have done so here. The reader should be aware that the "I" who speaks is the first author, This environmental scanning continued throughout the study, TYiangulation, the comparative assessment of more than one form of evidence through the use of multiple data sources, methods, and/or investigators, is widely used in research grounded in an interpretative paradigm, Denzin and Lincoln (1994, p, 2) have written that ",,,use of multiple methods or triangulation, reflects an attempt to secure an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon in question. Objective reality can never be captured. Triangulation is not a tool or a strategy of validation, but an alternative to validation, ,,,The combination of multiple methods, empirical materials, perspectives and observers in a single study is best understood, then, as a strategy that adds rigor, breadth, and depth to any investigation (see Flick, 1992, p, 194)," Pseudonyms are used for all participants to protect confidentiality. The pseudonyms are the names of the author's family members, none of whom participated in the 3-Day or the study, The motorcycle crew were part of the traffic safety teams who traveled along the route ensuring walkers remained alert and monitoring the safety of the course. All 3-Day crew members also served as a cheering section, encouraging walkers and helping them when needed.

2,

3, 4, 5,

6,

7, 8,

9, 10,

11,

12,

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