Anyone in Hollywood is connected to Kevin Bacon within six degrees of separation. Now, the actor wants to directly connect nonprofits with creative agencies.
In April, Bacon’s nonprofit SixDegrees.org partnered with Advertising Week to give six nonprofits the opportunity to work with six creative agencies. SixDegrees.org aimed to identify nonprofits that are at least three years old and have a budget of $3 million or less.
Now, SixDegrees.org has revealed the first pairings to come out of the program with their pro bono campaigns rolling out next week, Stacy Huston, SixDegrees.org’s executive director, told ADWEEK.
Huston said that the idea for the program was inspired by last year’s “Assume that I can campaign” from the National Coordination of Associations of People with Down Syndrome that called for an end to prejudice about the genetic condition.
“We’re in a funding crisis in the nonprofit sector,” Huston said. “Nonprofits have to conserve resources so they put it back to their programs, whereas this is the time where you have to get more attention so you can get more funding and more people aware of your message.
“The less you spend, the better you are,” she added. “But who does that serve when people don’t know that you exist?”
Nonprofits will typically spend 1% to 2% of their funding on marketing compared to big brands that can spend between 5% and 15% of revenue on marketing. Nonprofits that spend on marketing instead of reinvesting money back into their causes are “scrutinized for dollars and cents,” Huston said.
Here are the six nonprofits and their agency partners:
- Suicide prevention group Find Your Anchor and Crispin.
- Academic-focused Pulse of Perseverance and Versus.
- GlamourGals, a group that connects teenage girls with seniors to help with companionship, and Rain the Growth Agency.
- Trauma Intervention Programs and The Variable.
- DarkSky International, which works to reduce light pollution, and Bray & Co.
- B.E. A S.H.E.R.O. Foundation, which provides resources to abused, abandoned, and exploited women under 25 years old, and Duncan Channon.
Huston said that SixDegrees.org is looking to pilot another version of the program this winter to equip more nonprofits with resources, with the goal of rolling it out in 2026.
Purpose-backed brands
Over the past year, a mix of political, social, and economic factors have caused brands to pull back on purpose-based messaging, including initiatives like DEI.
But consumers seek out brands that stand out with strong points of view, Bacon said.
“When you feel like a company or their advertising MO has a positive attachment to it or some kind of charitable outreach involved with it, I know as a consumer, that’s where I’m going to go,” he said. “I’m definitely going to reach for that thing.”
Huston added that people are looking for ways to support companies that do good.
“We’re in a really hard time right in our society, and I think people feel stuck,” she said. “Whether that’s buying a product that they know another one goes to [a cause] they care about, or a person in need or someone that they can help, those little things really add up, especially when the consumer dollar is held a lot more tightly these days.”
For example, SixDegrees.org worked with Bombas, which donated socks in bulk to nonprofits. The brand also donates one pair of socks for every pair sold.
Being Kevin Bacon
Brands like Uber Eats, Budweiser, and Visible have leaned into Bacon’s “six degrees” game as a way to connect the actor to their names. Even the American Egg Board zeroed in on Bacon’s last name in an effort to promote eggs.
It wasn’t until he founded SixDegrees.org that Bacon leaned into the play on six degrees because he was able to create an organization that didn’t rely solely on himself.
“So many times these days I’m asked to be me,” he said. “It’s a strange function of this crazy game that I had no control over — for a long time, I really resisted it.”
