Overcoming barriers to strategic corporate partnerships

Too often charities are stuck in the low-value, transactional style relationships with companies. Teams struggle to attract and build high-value, impactful partnerships that are of a more strategic nature. THINK sees first-hand how hard teams are working to maintain partnerships. Teams know how difficult it is to secure corporate support, so maintaining and growing partnerships is always a key part of any of corporate strategy. THINK has observed many consistent behaviours across organisations of all sizes over the years that hinder an organisation developing strategic corporate partnerships – here we share and dive deeper into two key barriers:

1. The word partnership is used, but the focus is only on the money.

If the true focus on a corporate relationship is just about the money the relationship is immediately limited from the outset. The early days of a relationship with a company are tough, as trust and respect are being built and both parties find their way. However, it is also the time when both sides are excited, full of hope – this is a crucial time to be bold, ambitious and inspiring – devising plans to deliver impact in the broadest sense. Your ability to establish a strategic partnership will be challenging and your partner will potentially not feel valued if the emphasis is weighted heavily on income generation.

Are you ready as a whole organisation?

If you feel your organisation is not ready for strategic partnerships make sure this is acknowledged, expectations are managed, and you focus your efforts and resource accordingly. Agree what a strategic partnership looks like for your organisation, and what being ready embodies. Put a plan in place to work towards being able to build these types of relationships and gain organisational support. Identify existing corporate supporters which you feel could become more strategic in their partnership with you and that can be used as case studies to build the internal narrative, experience and expectations on what is needed and achievable.

Corporate partnerships require support across the organisation and they can impact all aspects of what you do in a way no other funding source can achieve. Senior support and confidence are vital in brokering partnerships where there is a power balance and mutual respect between parties. Too often corporate teams do not have the timely support of other functions, but also corporate teams do not push hard enough for creativity and are cautious in the pursuit on sustaining relationships internally and externally. Being uncomfortable, pushing boundaries, saying no, challenging companies to do more require a corporate team to feel safe and supported by leadership.

How will you measure success?

Corporate teams need to be measured on more than simply income if true partnerships are to be valued. Make sure other metrics are in place that really underpin the purpose and potential of partnership working, and the type of relationship your organisation wants to achieve. Ensure you place a value on non-financial support and measure its impact, so the full value of your partnerships is celebrated and the resources applied are commensurate with the support provided, not just the cash generated.

2. Corporate teams are unable to convert companies who buy services or products to become a strategic partner.

Many charities sell services and products under a more commercial style arrangement with companies, which in turn generates income. THINK has seen several charities using corporate purchases to drive the corporate partnership pipelines with limited success. Firstly, the person in a company responsible for purchasing products and services from a charity is in most cases not the same person who manages wider more strategic partnerships with the charitable sector. With the emergence of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and ESG (environmental, social and governance) strategies over the last decade, this is much more prominent. The relationship is based on a simple interaction, where a company is wanting a specific product and the charity is a trusted and respected supplier, potentially competing with commercial providers.

Look at shared value

To be able to build out from this transactional interaction, there needs to be a full and committed effort to engage in a much broader way with the business, looking closely at the potential to align values and objectives. This cannot be led from one person in the corporate team – it needs wider senior and functional support. Observing the company’s charitable behaviour to date and their appetite to support charitable endeavours can give clues on the potential. Mapping interactions and networks of senior colleagues and trustees to the business can also provide intelligence and paths into the business in order to diversify the relationship base.

Setting a criterion for identifying companies in the pool who portray certain characteristics that indicate potential for further exploration could be a way of filtering and building a more robust pipeline from this source. The CRM is also a key tool in this process, so making sure relationships, communications and interactions to date are transparent and accessible for each prospect is paramount. Moving from transactional relationship to a more strategic relationship will require creativity, honesty, time and the right proposition.

Don’t sell the crown jewels cheaply

The perceived ‘crown jewels’ of the charity are ‘sold’ either as commercial products or suggested low level donations are requested. If a company can ‘buy’ opportunities to support your organisation – whether that is team volunteer days, bespoke training, or expertise consultancy – it can cause challenges for the corporate team. THINK has observed how resources to deliver the services are limited and therefore when they are part of a corporate partnership style relationship, there is limited availability and incentive for the teams to support.

Too often the corporate teams feel they have very little else to offer corporates, especially where there is no history of strategic partnerships across the organisation. It is key to ensure the proposition for corporates, the impact corporates can achieve through working with you, and the value of your brand are thought through. And if strategic partnerships are a priority, how these more commercial offers sit with that plan and help enable strategic partnerships.

Companies that purchase your services or products are not automatically positioned to become long-term strategic partners. Many charities mistakenly invest significant time and effort trying to develop these transactional relationships into partnerships, but the reality is that most of these companies will remain buyers, not partners.

Some final tips to think about:

• Corporate partnerships shouldn’t dictate your charity’s strategy. Instead, your organisation needs a strong, clear proposition, with corporate partners aligning to support your goals. A well-defined strategy is essential for ensuring that partnerships serve the charity’s mission, not just the corporate partner’s business needs.
• However valuable your product buyers’ purchases are, this does not make them a partner; they are not making a meaningful difference to your partnership strategy. Ensure you are deploying resources efficiently and effectively while differentiating and managing expectations internally.
• A partnership requires trust and honesty internally and externally, with support across both organisations. For a true partnership to develop, the power balance needs to be anchored in knowing that what you are achieving together could not be achieved apart.

Share your experiences and join our clinic

THINK Research is conducting a survey to explore the barriers different organisations are experiencing internally when trying to build their corporate partnerships. Take part in our survey (it takes a maximum of eight minutes to complete) and we’ll invite you to a clinic where we share the findings and explore tactics to overcome some of the challenges: https://bit.ly/4f9pTr8

Michelle Sorrell, Senior Consultant
October 2024

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If you’re a non-profit looking for support with your corporate partnership strategy, we can help – you can get in touch with us here. You can also find us on LinkedIn at THINK Consulting Solutions, where we share useful industry insights.