It's that time of year again-when Top 10 Trend lists suddenly appear like lights on a tree (so far I've counted dozens, including Tech Trends, Green Marketing Social Media Trends, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Trends, Supermarket Trends, even the heart-stopping 2014 Top-Ten Call Center Trends).

Hope you all are having a wonderful giving season. This being the busiest time of year for nonprofits, I'm guessing that your 2014 marketing plan has been put on the back burner for now. But I'm here to help! If you need ideas for new places to start on Jan. 1 (or Jan. 2, let's be honest), then look no further.

"It's complicated" is not only the name of one of my favorite romantic comedies, but it's the conundrum facing everyone trying to integrate messaging about their efforts to do good into their marketing.

In their fun book, Mission in a Bottle, which is about the startup of their business, Honest Tea, Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff talk about a conversation Goldman had with Tom Szaky, the founder of up-cycling firm TerraCycle. Honest Tea, which bottles its Honest Kids fruit drinks in plastic and foil pouches, pioneered a promotion that asked people to send their empty pouches to TerraCycle for up-cycling into other products, while benefiting local schools. Szaky asked, how would Honest Tea feel about TerraCycle taking the pouch up-cycling promotion to a competing producer of kids' pouch drinks?