Corporate Fundraising – Acquisition for beginners. (Part 1)

If you have worked or are currently working for a small not for profit as a Fundraiser, the likely hood is you are a Jack of all trades having to organise and host fundraising events, make grant applications to trusts, manage the organisations donor care and oversee community fundraising, but what about corporate fundraising?

We all know we should be doing it, we all know it works for other charities but where should you begin?  This blog is to help those looking to introduce corporate fundraising to their organisation and build it into their fundraising strategy.   Remember, this blog is to be broken down into achievable steps and not tackled all at once.

Where to start?

What can our charity actually offer corporates - For starters you need to be clear with what you can offer corporates in return for their support.  Have you listed these opportunities / benefits? Explaining clearly explaining what kind of *return on investment they will receive for supporting you?

If not, it could be worth considering ‘’corporate support packages’’, by this I mean depending on the level / value of what support a corporate can offer it will influence the kind of benefits they receive.

When I talk about what you can offer to corporates I mean things such as publicity, recognition of their support on your website, social media, and perhaps a press release?  You also need to have a good understanding of your virtual reach for each offering e.g. how many followers does your twitter have, if it’s only a couple what good could that possibly be to your supporter, if it’s thousands then a corporate will know it will get them good publicity.  (Just to make things more confusing, with Twitter it’s not just about quantity of followers but quality – do they engage with your posts – but that is a conversation for another time)  Are there any influential patrons you could introduce your corporate too, or high profile events you could make them a VIP for – for a corporate this is a great networking opportunity who could potentially introduce to more customers.

Do you have a newsletter, how many people does this go out to?  Could you recognise the corporates support in your newsletter – this is a great opportunity to a corporate because they are raising awareness of their brand / product / service to all your supporters and to them these people are potential customers.

Where can I find these mystical creatures they call corporate supporters – so you now have a strong list of opportunities you can offer corporates for their support, what next?

History – most smaller charities that have been established for many years will have received adhoc corporate donations over time.  What often happens in smaller charities because they don’t have the resources or time is this donation will be thanked and that’s it.  Now when that happens it’s a real shame, because potentially there is opportunity for further stewarding and more support just left to wither, it’s also important that when a donation like this comes in, that it is recognised quickly while the excitement is there. 

I appreciate smaller charities can have problems with their database’s with data not being entered correctly but it is worth going back a couple of years and establishing what corporates have supported you, then depending on the circumstance you can make contact with these corporates, introduce yourself, recognise previous support and state you are looking to work with more local businesses and try to instigate a meeting etc.

Network Mapping (what’s that?) – it comes from the old time cliché, ‘’it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’’ but this really is the case, as individuals we really underestimate our own networks and not just ours but our colleagues.  When trying to work with more businesses the likely hood is, if it’s a cold ask like a blanket letter you have sent out to 50 businesses it simply won’t work.  Businesses receive hundreds if not thousands of cold asks and yours simply will go in the bin.

You need to be introduced, internally nominated etc.

See part two for how to go about network mapping, what to look for when identifying suitable businesses for partners and other tips and tricks for helping you with corporate fundraising.