Jonathan Greenblatt started off pitching a very unusual idea to investors. He proposed a bottled water company that would, as part of its core business model, donate half of its profits and focus all of its marketing on the need for clean water in the developing world. This strategy would itself drive sales and help it to beat out luxury brands like Fiji and Evian, which rely on water from exotic locales (shipped thousands of miles) to burnish their brands.

Investors, unsurprisingly, viewed Greenblatt's business proposition as dubious. He and his business partner had to build Ethos Water (now owned by Starbucks) on credit cards and loans from friends. But the idea proved to be a brilliant business--and a very effective advocacy tool. Ethos' founders recognized the growth of bottled water as an industry, but they also recognized that there was an opportunity to connect the act of providing water to consumers in rich countries with the need to do so for people in poor countries. If you click through to Ethos Water's website (which may dazzle you or frustrate you, depending on your tolerance for heavy Flash), the focus is entirely on the needs of children for clean water.

Greenblatt (who since left Ethos to found GoodInc.com) spoke on Monday as part of the CSIS series featuring people doing interesting things in the area of smart power. He told Ethos' story as an example of how "ethical brands" can be both viable businesses and powerful issue drivers.

Ethos made a conscious choice to treat customers as constituents. The company makes clear that while buying Ethos Water helps to deliver clean water around the world on the margins, no matter how many bottles of water the company sells and how big its profits get, it cannot solve the problem. So it encourages -- via its website and packaging -- customers to become active on water issues as advocates in their own right. Greenblatt told stories of Whole Foods clerks creating their own marketing materials and displays for Ethos because they believed in the brand so strongly. Ethos directs this enthusiasm toward a group of partner NGOs that work on water issues.

Something to keep in mind as you consider your advocacy options: are there (or could there be) strong connections to actions consumers take everyday in the marketplace?