A good corporate partnership should be about connecting businesses to communities. Crucial to this is CEO driven engagement. Great partnerships are not about publicity or profile of the business partner, but about driving change and outcomes of mutual benefit for the cause and the business. Often this is about the people to which both the charity and business serve. Two of our best Corporate Partnerships to date have been with NatWest Bank and with local social housing corporate EMH homes, based in the region. Both have involved investment based on cross organisational strategies to connect strategic objectives to social impact value and ‘measured by happiness’ (Tod Mc Quilkin, Air IT).
Working better together, to pool resources and expertise to respond the changes Brexit could bring to our sector. Competition for financial support increases every year, yet many of the charities I come across are trying to address the same or similar outcomes. The development of collaborative partnerships is key to securing the finance and outcomes we seek, not just in the next 12 months, but in the next 5-10 years.
Over the past few years, charities and fundraisers more specifically have made it into the press for the wrong reasons. Much of the sector is doing some amazing work, and there are some real heroes out there delivering significant change for real people and places in most need. This in turn has affected societies opinion, in some cases, on charitable giving and support, with some reluctant to donate as they have before. We know we are seeing a drop in individual donations and corporate support also continues to decline.
A positive focus on the work we do generally would really help us sell the importance of our work, not just in terms of our individual charitable activity but our wider role in delivering social, environmental and economic change for everyday people and places that are otherwise neglected of support.
‘I am not the target market’. Thanks to the National Arts Fundraising School (Dana, Jules & the hero himself Bernard Ross) for that simple yet vital mantra to apply to my work.
My superpower would have to be Reading Minds. Key to fundraising is understanding the donor or investors motivations to support a cause or campaign. Matching the charities needs to these motivations would be so much easier if I could read the minds of trustees making decisions and the thoughts of our supporters in connecting them to our work.
Its not a joke as such but more a poem called The Joy of Asking
A fundraiser stood at the heavenly gate,
His face was scarred and old.
He stood before the man of fate
For admission to the fold
“What have you done,” Saint Peter said,
“To gain admission here?”
“I’ve been a fundraiser, sir,
“For many and many a year.”
The pearly gates swung open wide,
Saint Peter rang the bell.
“Come in and choose your harp”, he sighed
You’ve had your share of hell!
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