In this rapid-fire Q&A episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast, host Simon Scriver puts corporate partnerships expert Andy King (Fireside Fundraising) on the spot with the most commonly asked questions from the Fundraising Everywhere community. Pulled from feedback and conference audiences, this episode covers everything fundraisers want to know about building and sustaining corporate partnerships.
Topics include:
- What good corporate partnerships actually look like — and why companies don’t want to be treated like bank accounts
- Fewer big partnerships vs. more medium-sized ones: which strategy to start with
- Realistic partnership values for small charities (with real-world examples)
- How to find and qualify the right prospects using mission alignment and giving preferences
- Cold vs. warm outreach: realistic reply rates and why the difference is staggering
- Mixing channels (email, phone, LinkedIn, Instagram DMs) and why consistency matters
- How to approach corporates at networking events without killing the mood
Andy also shares details about upcoming Fireside Fundraising research on how companies give, available free at the end of September, plus a Fundraising Everywhere webinar sharing the highlights.
Andy King, Founder of Fireside Fundraising — find him on LinkedIn or at firesidefundraising.com
Become a member to access our Relationship Fundraising Fundamentals
Check out our next Corporate Partnerships Conferencetified to be first to hear of future podcast episodes. We’d love to see you back again!
And thank you to our friends at JustGiving who make the Fundraising Everywhere Podcast possible.
Transcript
Jade Cunnah: Welcome to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast, your go-to place for fundraising tips and inspiration. Love what you hear? Get more insights straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our email list for exclusive fundraising resources, early access to training, special discounts, and more. Just head on over to fundraisingeverywhere.com/podcast to subscribe.
Jade Cunnah: Now, on to today’s episode. Enjoy.
Simon Scriver: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Simon Scriver. I am one of the co-founders of Fundraising Everywhere, and very happy to be here with you today. Today, we are doing a corporate FAQs. Over the past few months… well, all year, we run corporate events.
Simon Scriver: We run our corporate partnerships conference, uh, in February every year. Uh, and a lot of our sessions and webinars pop into the world of corporate relationships. Uh, and over that time we get a lot of questions that pop up from now and, now and again, a lot of commonly asked questions. We get some questions which we don’t get time to answer in those situations, and so what we’ve done is we’ve gone through our feedback, gone through our mail bag, gone through all of our questions, and pulled together, uh, a whole bunch of corporate questions to throw at, to ask an expert.
Simon Scriver: And our expert today is the one and only Andy King. Welcome back to the Fundraising Everywhere podcast, Andy King.
Andy King: Thanks so much. Always great to be here. Can’t wait to hit these questions. I feel like I’m gonna be like Neo in The Matrix, except-
Simon Scriver: Yeah …
Andy King: I’m gonna try and answer them all so they would hit me.
Simon Scriver: Yeah, none of
Andy King: that- We’ll do our best … none of that
Simon Scriver: leaning back, dodging stuff. We don’t wanna see that. We want… Well, you do your best, you know, see, see how we go. See how it goes. We’re putting you on the spot. I mean, this is rapid fire. There’s gonna be a lot of questions here. Um, but Andy, uh, has been so good to us.
Simon Scriver: Uh, you will pro- probably recognize him from the corporate partnerships conference that he helps us run every year, which is great. He’s also just delivered a relationships fu- a fu- … relationship fundraising fundamentals course. That’s a members-only course. Uh, but I’ll drop a link to that in the podcast episode.
Simon Scriver: Um, but that’s where he di- dives deeper into a lot of these questions, a lot of the topics that we’re gonna be covering today. So that’s a really great course which we’re getting great feedback from. Um, but Andy, for those people who don’t know you and don’t know your organization, Fireside Fundraising, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about yourself.
Andy King: Yeah, of course. I, when I was younger, wanted to be a journalist, and then I grew up and I met some journalists- … and I realized that I didn’t want to be a journalist. I just wanted to tell stories that I felt mattered, and that took me into fundraising super quickly. I fell into fundraising as we seemingly all do.
Andy King: And what I realized is that while all forms of fundraising allow a donor to change the ending of a story, companies can often shift the narrative. If you’re a health charity and you can work with food producers to make their food healthier, not only can you fund cures, but you can stop people getting sick.
Andy King: If you are a homeless charity that can work with construction companies to build more affordable ho- housing, not only can you take people off the streets, you can stop them getting there in the first place. And that kind of- opportunity to spot patterns where companies could be part of the solution really kind of became an obsession.
Andy King: And now here I am at Fireside Fundraising. It’s my own corporate fundraising consultancy. I work with a clan of experts in everything from how to pitch your charity, who you should be approaching, kind of building your pipeline, and how much money you should be asking them for, and I just, yeah, I just love it.
Simon Scriver: Amazing. And you’ve, you’ve delivered a lot of great sessions for us over the years. Um, and I always recommend you and Fireside Fundraising as people to follow in the sector if you have any interest in corporate fundraising, and fundraising as a whole. I feel like you bring a journalistic vibe to your fundraising, ’cause I find you’re a curious, inquisitive mind, which is one thing that makes a good fundraiser and relationship builder.
Simon Scriver: Um, but also the way you break things down, I think you, you have a good, uh, talent for simplifying it for the common man like me- Yeah … um, and breaking down all this, all these stats and research and what’s actually going on. So I’m very grateful for you, Andy, and grateful for you to make the time today and put yourself on the spot for our quick-fire questions.
Simon Scriver: Um- Feel
Andy King: like we should have a little jingle, like, “Dun-dun-dun.” Yeah, why not? Let’s go.
Simon Scriver: I’ll get Jade onto that. Um, let’s get started. Let me, let me get through, ’cause we don’t have a whole lot of time. But I’m g- just gonna bang these out. First of all, what do good partnerships look like?
Andy King: This is a great question, and I think probably the most important one to answer.
Andy King: What good partnerships looks like depends entirely on who your charity are, what you need from companies. I know all of you listening are going, “Well, what we need is money,” and yes, you need money, but what else might you need? And what often happens is a trust and f- uh, foundations fundraiser comes back from maternity leave to be told that they’re doing trusts and corporate now.
Andy King: Or a community fundraiser comes back from a period of furlough to be told that they’re doing community and corporate now. And it can feel like being asked to cook Indian food when you’ve only ever eaten Chinese. Like, how could you possibly know where to even begin there? And my favorite place to look for partnership examples is the Third Sector Charity Business Awards, which just has example after example of partnerships.
Andy King: And to stretch the Indian-Chinese analogy, like, it’s a little bit like an Indian street market. Like, you can try a little bit of this, you can try a little bit of that. You can see what a great legal partnership looks like. You can see what a great gift-in-kind partnership looks like. You can see what a great employee volunteering partnership looks like.
Andy King: And it’s just a really powerful opportunity to think about what that might look like in your organization. Companies don’t want to be treated like bank accounts. Companies don’t want to be treated like trusts. Good partnerships look like a genuine partnership where there is conversation back and forth, and you find solutions that solve the company’s problems and yours.
Andy King: That might be a shared marketing campaign like the one between Ambitious About Autism and Vanish, which I absolutely loved, or it might be a really strong colleague fundraising partnership like the Charity of the Year between Morrisons and Together for Short Lives What it looks like depends on your cause, but my best piece of advice would be to start with the Third Sector Charity Business Awards, and to treat that like a street food market before you go back- Mm-hmm
Andy King: to your own quote, unquote, “kitchen”.
Simon Scriver: Love it. Very good. Uh, what does it look like internally? Is it fewer big relationships, or is it lots of little relationships, lots of little corporate donors?
Andy King: Yeah, that’s a great question. And again, it does depend. There are benefits to both. Fewer, bigger allows you a better return on investment and a more in-depth relationship, but more medium-sized allows you less risk in your portfolio and a wider pool to prospect from.
Andy King: There are lots of reasons that charities might want one or the other, but in general, starting out, my advice would be to go for more medium-sized rather than fewer bigger. Because you’re gonna be learning lessons, you’re gonna be building your portfolio, and the more money a company is giving you, the more they’re gonna ask for proof that you’ve done it before.
Andy King: Mm-hmm. So by aiming for that medium-size to begin with, you can kind of build that credibility that a few years in might allow you to go for the fewer, bigger approach if you want that. But in general, setting your sights on a 25 to 50K partnership is gonna bring you a lot more joy at the start of the journey than going for those six and seven-figure gifts that exist but, in truth, are quite rare.
Simon Scriver: If you’re a small charity watching this, is that a realistic figure? I mean, are you plucking those figures out of the sky or, or is that the kind of levels you see, 25,000, that kind of? So it’s definitely possible for smaller charities. Child Accident Prevention Trust are a client. Their turnover is £250,000.
Andy King: Mm. 10% of that comes from a partnership with AXA that is 25,000. Wow. Um, Child Accident Prevention Trust obviously give them quite a lot back because it’s such a significant percentage of their income.
Multiple Speakers: Mm.
Andy King: Uh, The Sleep Charity, when they were about half a million pounds turnover, their partnership with Furniture Village was 50K a year.
Andy King: So they are kind of evidence-based. The smaller you are, the smaller end you might wanna go for, maybe 10- Mm … maybe 15. But 25K is kind of a healthy number to be shooting for in most cases, I would say.
Simon Scriver: Amazing. I, uh, I always find it very helpful to hear, to hear these ballpark figures. Obviously, th- everyone’s different, situations are different, getting started is different, but I think it’s helpful to have these kind of ballpark figures in our mind.
Simon Scriver: Onto the next question. How do you find good prospects? This is, uh, a million-dollar question, and usually it’s a whole piece of consultancy because it depends on a number of things. And rather than dwell personally on all the things it depends on, I wanted to ask some friends who are prospecting experts.
Andy King: So I went to Chloe at Zipwhip who gave us a voice note to answer this question now. Let’s hear from Chloe. Hi. Thanks for asking. When we work with an organization to understand what they’re looking for, it usually involves these main topics. One is there a match between your mission and values and theirs?
Speaker: Two, do they have the funds, expertise, or network that you need? And are you able to help them fulfill their goals? For example, are they looking for a big brand alignment or maybe employee engagement? Three, do they fit your gift acceptance policy, and do you fit their giving preferences? Four, is there a hook for building this relationship?
Speaker: For example, do you work in the same locations or do you appeal to the same audience? Five, how realistic is this partnership? Do you look like any of their previous partners? Is it way too competitive, or do you have a warm connection in? So those are some of the things we look for. Hope that helps
Simon Scriver: I love that.
Simon Scriver: I mean, a bit of distortion in the sound there sometimes, but it’s nice to have the, the voice of expertise just beam into us.
Andy King: Yeah, it’s a good time. And Chloe and her partner Tom really know what they’re talking about. It does start from that place of a- asking those questions. Who do you have mission alignment with?
Andy King: A cancer charity might think of a sun cream company as an obvious prospect, for example. Mm. But also, whose giving preferences do you meet? That in itself is a huge piece of research. Who do companies choose- Mm … to give to? And my agency, Fireside, are actually working with Zipwhip to put that evidence out there to see which industries give to which causes.
Andy King: If you are an animal charity, does that change who you go for? If you are a health charity, does that change- Mm … who you go for? At the end of September, we’re gonna be making that information publicly available completely for free. We’re actually hosting a webinar with Fundraising Everywhere to give the highlights away at that point.
Andy King: Uh, we can pop a link to sign up to that webinar in the podcast description, because some of the research findings are absolutely fascinating. For example, we’re seeing environmental charities do really well across the board except in Charity of the Year. So when you’re thinking about giving preferences if you’re an environmental cause, you could think about cause-related marketing, or you could think about- client engagement, but you don’t wanna think about Charity of the Year, and that kind of stuff can really help you. All of which will lead to at least some industries that you can start to look at so that you know it’s finance and construction, but not pharmaceutical. And then you can start to ask those questions that Chloe just asked then.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. I mean, it’s important. Th- th- there isn’t one big list we all download. I mean, this is what you guys do at Fireside, and, and what so much of our corporate events end up talking about, is that, that process of identifying and qualifying these prospects. It’s, it’s not a quick thing. That is a huge part of the corporate fundraising process.
Andy King: Absolutely. The HSBC UK are approached by charities in the UK 10,000 times a year. Which is 4.3 times an hour every hour. They say yes on average five times a year.
Multiple Speakers: Wow.
Andy King: If there was a big list that everyone downloaded, it would just be HSBC, and you’re putting yourself in a deeply competitive space for sort of no reason.
Andy King: Whereas taking that tailored approach, while slower, is more effective. As you say, it’s something that Fireside really frequently do with clients- Mm … is help them build their pipeline. But there isn’t really a shortcut to it. It is just doing the work.
Simon Scriver: Mm-hmm. I find it really exciting, the idea that there’s companies out there that have never been asked for money, do you know?
Simon Scriver: ‘Cause they’re not on any of these lists, but they’ve … Literally no one has ever made that approach to them. Th- this is a difficult one, but what’s a realistic … People are always asking for realistic open rates, click rates, reply rates. You know, when you’re reaching out to corporates, what are the kind of rates you would expect to see?
Andy King: Yeah. Again, it’s gonna depend, right? And there are a number of things it’s gonna depend on, but the two main things is, one, are you emailing warm or cold? And two, are your emails any good? Warm or cold, cold reply rates are atrocious. HubSpot put out a stat, I think it was last year, that on average if you send 100 cold emails you get two replies.
Simon Scriver: Whereas-
Andy King: And
Simon Scriver: that’s higher than I thought it would be almost.
Andy King: Yeah. A, a reply isn’t a yes, though.
Simon Scriver: Yeah,
Andy King: true. A reply is a reply. Uh, and no, go away is a reply. So two out of 100, whereas, uh, I think it was Rain Group, I will check that and come back to you said that 30% of warm approaches- Mm … get a reply. Um, so that’s the biggest differentiating factor. Uh, from as little as 1 in 50 at cold to 1 in 3 at warm is the average. And then the second thing is like, is your email any good? Does the person have the chance to reply? One of the things that really bums reply rates is that your first email is incredibly long and they don’t have a chance to get round to it.
Andy King: Or your first email links to a video and they think, “Well, I’ll watch that video and then I’ll hit reply,” but they get distracted halfway through the video. So there are things you can do to increase your reply rates. Uh, keep your email less than 250 words with a single call to action, which is get to meeting, et cetera, et cetera.
Andy King: But assuming that you are emailing warm, assuming that you are emailing as well as possible, up to 1 in 3, as few as 1 in 10 are acceptable ranges I would say.
Simon Scriver: That’s really helpful. Thank you. And, and if we, if we bring in like phone and LinkedIn approaches like that, I mean, I’m assuming the more- In your face, the more human you are, the better response you’re gonna get generally.
Simon Scriver: But what, what does it look like when you compare phone and email and LinkedIn?
Andy King: Yeah. It’s a good question. And the truth is, it depends on your charity. I have seen charities with glamorous brands, which is a really weird thing to say. But like, cool, hip charity brands do incredibly well in Instagram DMs, whereas more formal, stuffy, serious brands do much better via email, and it’s worth thinking about what channels lend themselves to your brand.
Andy King: But the thing that generally gets a reply is consistency. There’s a, again, a stat that the industry average is it takes eight approaches to get a reply, but those eight approaches should ideally be you send an email, then you try and connect with them on LinkedIn, then you phone the office, then you email them again, but it’s a fresh email chain you haven’t replied to yourself.
Andy King: Mm. Then you call the office again, et cetera. And you do those experiments until you work out what works best for you.
Simon Scriver: I, I mean, someone perhaps new to fundraising might hear that eight approaches and get kind of like shocked by that, you know, the thought of, like, someone phoning me eight times. But it doesn’t really feel like that to the person on the other end, does it?
Simon Scriver: ‘Cause it’s so diluted by all the other things that are happening in their lives, and as you say, you’re mixing it up.
Andy King: Exactly. You just… You’d be surprised at how little they notice. And that’s just part of it, is just trying to capture their attention.
Simon Scriver: Mm.
Andy King: The average office worker is receiving hundreds of emails a day.
Andy King: If they haven’t opened your email, the next day they’ve forgotten that it existed.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. That’s interesting. How do you approach a corporate at a networking event without killing the mood? How do you avoid being one of those buzzkills at these networking events?
Andy King: Love that question, without killing the mood.
Andy King: There is definitely a vibe at a corporate networking event where you’re like, “I’m a charity,” and people are like, “Oh.” This is advice for networking events that is also advice for first approaches in general, which is called similarity bias. There is a really strong behavioral science principle. We like to hang out with people who remind us of ourselves.
Andy King: We like people that dress similarly to us. We like people who live near us. We like people who like the same TV show as us. Whatever it is. Um, and one of the best ways to get over that kind of killing-the-mood hurdle is to just start with the stuff that you have in common. Rather than pointing out that you’re different because you’re a charity, point out that you’re the same because y- your donors look like their customers or your services solve the same problem as their products, that kind of stuff.
Multiple Speakers: Mm.
Andy King: I would say leading with what you have in common rather than how you’re different, and making sure that you don’t look like you’re asking for money in the first moment that you’re speaking to them, you’re just there to explore what connections might look like, can really help you. “Here’s what we have in common.
Andy King: I’m curious what we could learn from each other,” is a really killer way to begin a partnership conversation.
Simon Scriver: I love your point about your donors looking like their customers. I think that’s such an important thing to remember. That’s what they’re trying to do, is get in front of more people that they sell- And
Andy King: one of my favorite examples of that is Tree Aid are a charity that, that plant trees in industrial development, and all of their donors are typically older women.
Multiple Speakers: Mm.
Andy King: And so when they started going into companies where those elder women shop, like garden centers, they suddenly started doing really well because they… the company could see the overlap much- Mm … more immediately because it appeals to that tar- target demographic. So- Mm … yeah, it’s a useful place to begin, for sure.
Simon Scriver: Yeah, very obvious similarity. That’s brilliant. Uh, we get asked this a lot. What is the best time of year to approach a company?
Andy King: Now. Um, today, now, whenever you’re hearing this, now. The difficulty of this question is to answer it in any earnestness gives any fundraiser an excuse to put it off. And that’s a problem.
Andy King: Hmm.
Simon Scriver: Interesting.
Andy King: There are better and worse times, the worse times being August and December. But sending an email in August rather than saying you’re going to send an email in September and then not doing it is still better. So there are, there are worse times, August and December. There are better times, the times around those.
Andy King: But the best time to approach a company is when you have time, just do it. Stop putting it off. That’s encouraging. I like that. If you get ghosted after a great first meeting, it goes really well, and then you just feel like that person isn’t replying to you, isn’t responding, what do you do? How, how, how much do we push this?
Andy King: Yeah, it’s a great question, and I would suggest that a minimum is eight approaches, because that’s the industry average to get a reply. That’s eight approaches, not eight emails. So you send an email, you send a LinkedIn comment. You, uh, send them something, “I saw this and thought of you,” which I know is a, a phrase that you’re quite keen on, Simon.
Andy King: Um, eight times, it would be the recommendation. I know people that have kept going longer and landed partnerships, and I know people that have kept going longer and not. Um, however, you do have to call a line somewhere, but that line should be called further away than you think. Interesting. Lots of fundraisers would say they’d follow up someone three times, and they’re lying to you, and they mean twice.
Andy King: But eight is the industry average, so when you go to that, it tends to work.
Simon Scriver: There, there’s so much of that in fundraising, isn’t it? It’s not like, not brazenness, but like the, the endurance. Do you know? The endurance to keep going with this and, and in every aspect of fundraising that seems to come up. But when you look at why something’s not working, very, it’s often ’cause we’re just not doing it enough.
Simon Scriver: We’re not doing it with enough conviction.
Andy King: And if you look at how often companies are happy to contact you, and they don’t think- Yeah. … I get an email from Domino’s at least weekly, if not more often. I get texts from Domino’s at least weekly, if not more often. And if I’m ordering a pizza, where am I ordering it from?
Andy King: Mm. Domino’s. Like- Mm … that’s just how marketing works.
Simon Scriver: Amazing. Um, how do you price a corporate partnership or a, or a volunteering package? How do you actually determine your pricing here?
Andy King: That is a question that would be a whole podcast, I would say. However, my best advice in a succinct way is that this is something that AI is getting better and better at- Ah
Andy King: specifically Google Gemini, because Google Gemini has been trained on a lot of YouTube’s marketing sales data. And so putting in as much context as possible, with your privacy settings turned on, into Google Gemini and explaining and asking it to price it for you and give reasoning is the best short answer I can give you.
Andy King: If you are stuck for a long answer, email me. That’s very interesting. I mean, it’s not often you hear, I mean, you hear these theoretical uses of AI, but, I mean, yeah, in fundraising I’ve yet to see many practical things. That’s interesting what you’re saying about the YouTube sales training information.
Andy King: Yes. It- because companies might approach charities in the same way that they approach influencers- Mm … of seeing them as a way into a market or to have content for a market or similar. And so it’s, it’s the closest big data set available to us.
Simon Scriver: That’s very interesting. Is it fair to ask a company what their budget is, or do we go in, guess with tiered pricing with some options?
Simon Scriver: What’s the best approach here?
Andy King: Yeah, you can ask for sure. There’s that classic negotiation thing, right? Of they say, “How much does it cost?” And you say, “Well, what’s your budget?” And they say- Yeah … “Well, how much does it cost?” How much is it cost? And you say, “Well, what’s your budget?” And then you repeat that until the end of time.
Andy King: Heat death of the universe. Typically we would recommend that you ask them what their budget is. And if they push back and say, “Well, how much does it cost?” You can say, “Well, why don’t we give it to you at different price points? Do you have an idea of what those price points would be?”
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Andy King: Yeah. If they then don’t give you the price points, you can say, “Okay, great, how about we go for 75, 50, and 25K?”
Andy King: Gauge their reaction.
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Andy King: I would have the conversation about money face to face, even on a Zoom call, before you send it in a proposal so that you know that they have the budget for the proposal you’re putting together. Ask first. If they don’t answer the question, answer it for them.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. I, I mean, I think so, uh, I learn this so often from you whenever I see you speak, is you can just have conversations with these people.
Simon Scriver: Like, you don’t have to try and read their minds from
Andy King: start to finish. Oh, yeah. One, one of the things I say the most often is that companies aren’t real, because companies aren’t real, and charities aren’t real. It’s just a shell of people.
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Andy King: And how do you speak to a company? It’s like, well, I don’t know.
Andy King: How do you speak to a person? ‘Cause it is just a person on behalf of a company, for sure.
Simon Scriver: We’ve had questions about minimum annual partnership values. How do you set one? I mean, uh, can you expand on this a little bit?
Andy King: Yeah, of course. There is lots of guidance out there that you should have a minimum partnership value, uh, and there’s lots of guidance out there that it should be quite high, and the honest answer is it depends.
Andy King: There are charities out there who have big minimum partnership values. Uh, the biggest I know of is, I, I believe WWF’s mi- minimum is £250,000 a year. Wow. Which is a very expensive panda. Uh, I believe Water Aid is, is closer to £100,000 a year, and if you don’t give them that much and you’re not willing to guarantee them that much, you cannot call yourself their partner.
Andy King: Um, but what WWF and Water Aid have is massive brand power that allows them that leverage that many of the charities listening to this podcast will not have. I would suggest for your first few years, it’s worth thinking about minimums for return services. Yeah. For example, if they want bespoke reporting, it’s worth having a minimum partnership value for bespoke reporting.
Andy King: Or if they want exclusive use of a story of a service user, it’s worth having a minimum value for that rather than a minimum overarching partnership value to begin with. And as your program gets more mature, it’s easier to then have the more nuanced conversation of, okay, now if we’re splitting between the community and the corporate team who handles what, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is easier a couple years in.
Simon Scriver: I mean, i- is it if you’re not, e- even if you’re not at the point where it’s a formal policy, we should all have, I suppose, a figure in our head where it’s like, “This is what makes it… This is worthwhile or this is not worthwhile”? ‘Cause I, I think we’ve seen so often people fall into traps where they’re doing something and it’s taking them more time and money than really it’s generating.
Andy King: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s always worth thinking about, is the activity that I’m doing, present tense, worth it? Which is not the same thing as having a hard and fast minimum. Mm. Uh, it might be easier to set a minimum, but yeah, absolutely. You need to be making sure that you’re turning a profit, for sure.
Simon Scriver: Um, Charity of the Year, we talk about it, um, a lot, uh, on the platform. People have very strong opinions. Opinions are changing on it, I think. Um, but l- let me ask you a couple qu- Charity of the Year question. Yeah. Is Charity of the Year worth prioritizing over one-off campaigns, or is it a dying thing?
Simon Scriver: Where are we at with Charity of the Year?
Andy King: There was a debate on this topic between Graham Darnell and Becky Francis at the- Very good …
Simon Scriver: Corporate Conference this year. Still available on demand for anyone who wants to check the library.
Andy King: If you want a fuller answer to that question, I’d really recommend checking out that session.
Andy King: Um, my answer is it depends on your cause area.
Multiple Speakers: Mm.
Andy King: Uh, and we, as part of the research that we’re giving in September, uh, there was a big data set of Charity of the Year partnerships, and Chloe and Tom dug into who won by cause area. Uh, and so rather than saying, “Yes, Charity of the Year is worth it,” or, “No, it’s not,” it’s like, well, if you are a children or a health cause, it’s probably worth it, and if you’re an environmental cause, it’s probably not.
Andy King: There’s a big data set coming out on that is yum, yum, yum, delicious. Uh- Sh- … check back at the end of September for a evidence-based answer to that question.
Simon Scriver: Listen. Uh, just, uh, there’s a question expanding a bit on these, these different names for things. Is, uh, you know, whether it’s Charity of the Year, people call it corporate donation, corporate sponsorship, corporate partnership.
Simon Scriver: Are these just words, or is there, like, formal differences between these things?
Andy King: It’s a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. Yeah. There are legal differences from some of them. Uh, however, they’re often thrown around. Companies will often call something a grant even though it’s just a donation.
Andy King: The- I’m gonna do this as quickly as I can. It’s enough. Um, the legally distinct things are commercial participation agreements, professional fundraisers, sponsorships, and donations. Commercial participation agreements is when they are using your logo to help sell a particular product or products. When Whole Earth Peanut Butter put Sumatran Orangutan Society’s logo on their peanut butter and said, “Buying this jar of peanut butter plants trees,” that’s commercial participation agreement.
Andy King: Professional fundraising is when companies are fundraising from the public on your behalf and are collecting donations within their bank accounts. So when Tesco ask you if you wanna round up to the nearest pound for the local food bank, and Tesco take that money and later donate it to the food bank, that’s a professional fundraising agreement.
Andy King: A sponsorship-led agreement is when they are guaranteed logo presence in places, when someone is sponsoring an event in exchange for having a pop-up banner, for example And then a donation is anything that is not those three things that I’ve just discussed. Each of those categories have separate legal consequences and need different types of written agreements.
Andy King: Again, in the corporate conference and on the on-demand session, Jane Montague has a, a more thorough explanation of that work. It’s a really useful part of Fundraising Everywhere’s library but hopefully that’s a top-end discussion.
Simon Scriver: And I imagine that partnerships are n- very often not just one-to-one.
Simon Scriver: It’s like a mix of those things. So each organization listens to this really, I s- suppose, has to consider the legal implications, the tax implications. It’s a bigger topic than we can get through in one one succinct answer, I’m sure.
Andy King: Absolutely.
Simon Scriver: That’s fair. Company’s picked you as charity of the year, but then they’ve gone quiet for the year, almost like a tick box exercise, but then there’s no engagement.
Simon Scriver: What do you do?
Andy King: You boo them loudly. You just go, “Boo!” Um, a lot of the advice is the same as the first meeting advice, be persistent and do follow up. Going with a we-want-to-help-you-make-the-most-of-this-opportunity approach is the way to go. It’s an opportunity you don’t want to waste, and don’t take it personally that they’re not responding.
Andy King: Just be persistent.
Simon Scriver: Amazing. Um, these companies who switch partners, you know, they have a different one every year, or maybe they have a three-year policy where they’re gonna change it. Is it just a yahoo, sucks to you, or is there something you can do to change that?
Andy King: Oh, yeah, there’s, there’s absolutely something you can do.
Andy King: Ask them. Hmm. As- ask them. We did this research for a bit last year, why companies give. Uh, and we interviewed shareholders from companies all different sizes, all different levels of seniority. And really repeatedly we found that they were saying, “Oh, and then we extended this partnership,” da, da, da, da, da.
Andy King: And we asked, “Oh, how come you extended that partnership but not the other one you’re talking about?”
Simon Scriver: Hmm.
Andy King: And they would regularly be like, “Oh, the one we extended asked.” Like, oh-
Simon Scriver: Ah.
Andy King: Oh. Uh, so yeah, uh, you break that cycle by asking them.
Simon Scriver: Yeah, I love it. Um, say your contact in the organization gets it, you know, you’ve got a good relationship with the person there, but they’re not the decision-maker and they won’t introduce you.
Simon Scriver: You can’t seem to get past the person who gets it. What do you do? Do you walk away on that or you keep working on them?
Andy King: I love this question because the question itself reveals the problem, which is that you’re treating the person as a gatekeeper when the person who knows the decision-makers knows the decision-makers infinitely better than you are ever going to.
Speaker: Mm.
Andy King: The, the person you are speaking to has forgotten more about the decision-makers than you will ever learn, and if they’re not letting you to the decision-makers, there’s a reason. And so instead of trying to get past- Mm … the gatekeeper, go through the gatekeeper. Ask them what they need to present it to the decision-makers themselves.
Andy King: There was a particular partnership, um, with a whiskey company that I was working on where the person who would be really easy to be seen as the gatekeeper said, “It’s not appropriate for you to come to a leadership team meeting, but I can get a 10-minute slot. Can you help me build the slides?” And we built the slides, and she went and she pitched to the leadership team, and the leadership team emailed back to say it was a slam dunk yes, because they had understood the principles of what they were going through.
Simon Scriver: Yeah.
Andy King: So rather than kind of continuing to force that you need to meet the decision-maker- Yeah … understand what is needed to get a yes from the decision-maker, which may not be meeting you.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. I love that. Thank you. Companies want photogenic volunteering, these photogenic opportunities, these picture-perfect things.
Simon Scriver: So many of our causes are not pretty or not… You know, you can’t take a photo of anything. What do you do in those circumstances?
Andy King: So corporate volunteering, I think, is its own thing. One of the most common questions we get is like, “Do you need corporate volunteering?” And no. If you need-
Andy King: corporate volunteers, then have them, but if you don’t need corporate volunteers, don’t fake it. Explain to them and talk through what they want out of the volunteering and make that happen. Debra, uh, D-E-B-R-A, the EB charity-
Simon Scriver: Yeah …
Andy King: most of their corporate volunteering days
Andy King: are sorting stock in their retail warehouses, which is not photogenic, but it’s really fun. Yeah. And the team just take a photo outside the retail shop, and then they’ve got a nice photo in natural lighting, and they post that. It doesn’t have to be photogenic because if they are just looking for like a nice PR moment, they can just talk about how it felt to do the work instead.
Andy King: However, if you don’t need volunteers, don’t force it. Again, there’s a longer conversation about corporate volunteering- Yeah … that I have with Chris Pitt, uh, the impact director of- Yeah … the Benefact Group, also, I believe, in the Fundraising Everywhere library.
Simon Scriver: Yes, absolutely. We’ll make sure to link that.
Simon Scriver: That was a great one. Yes, and you answered a lot of questions in that one. Um, is ESG- ESG CSR pressure turning volunteering into tick box exercise? How do you push back? That was a question from someone.
Andy King: Sometimes. Uh, it, different companies have different motives, and it’s really hard to ascribe any particular behavior en masse. One of the things I would say is if a company’s approaching you for volunteering, don’t just say yes or no and hope that it turns into something more. Be explicit that you want it to turn into something more.
Multiple Speakers: Mm.
Andy King: Um, some com- uh, some charities do really well by saying, “We only offer volunteering as part of a wider partnership package. Is that something that you’re interested in, yes or no?” And if they say no, they weren’t interested in a wider partnership package, so you haven’t lost an opportunity. So all of that to say, if you’re gonna offer volunteering and you want it to lead to something else, only offer it to something on the understanding it’s leading to something else.
Andy King: You’re not losing opportunities, because they weren’t gonna change anyway.
Simon Scriver: Yeah, you certainly don’t wanna put yourself in a position where the volunteering is almost costing money. You’re losing money facilitating it, and you know it’s not gonna lead to anything else, or at least you haven’t had that conversation.
Andy King: And it can be really easy to be like, “Oh, well, if we just give them a great volunteering experience-
Simon Scriver: Yeah, yeah … maybe that’ll
Andy King: lead to a partnership.” Except the company already think they’re doing you a favor by volunteering- That’s true … a lot of time, and so they’re like, “Oh, great. We’ve done a good thing.
Andy King: You’ve had a good thing. That’s us done.” Whereas if you’re explicit, we can do volunteering as part of a wider partnership, you understand immediately from their reaction, is this going anywhere?
Simon Scriver: Yeah. Well done. Thank you. What can a cha- I mean, we touched a bit on this about the photos, but we also get questions, charities with no premises, no obvious volunteering opportunities you know, they’ve maybe got safeguarding sens- sensitivities.
Simon Scriver: I used to work for, um, a sexual abuse charity, so you couldn’t, like, ha- have people even really on premises, uh, a lot of the time. If you feel like you’ve got nothing to offer as a charity, what do you
Andy King: do? Cry. Uh-
Simon Scriver: Why, why do you exist if you’ve got nothing
Andy King: to offer? You all have something to offer.
Andy King: You’ve got something to offer. Um, so companies want one or more of five things, which is impact reporting marketing and communications content that they can share publicly- … recognition that you share publicly, employee engagement that gives their colleagues chances to do stuff, or service user engagement that gets them a chance to see the difference they’re making firsthand.
Andy King: You do not need to be able to offer all five things, but if you’re not offering all five things, you need to be really good at the ones that you are offering. So for example, if you have no premises, no obvious volunteering and safeguarding sensitivities, your impact reporting better be shit hot. And then you can say, “We’ve got really high-quality data about the difference that you’re making,” and lean really hard into that.
Andy King: I’ll just repeat that quickly. It was impact reporting- Marketing and comms, which is content that they can share; recognition, which is content that you can share; employee engagement; and service user engagement. The more of those five categories you can fill, the better. But if you can’t do one of them, don’t do it, just get better at the other stuff.
Andy King: Mm.
Simon Scriver: And then I guess there’s alignment with different corporates as well. I mean, I’ve experienced corporates who didn’t want the public marketing thing for whatever reason. You know, they had sens- their own sensitivities in there, or, you know, it wasn’t appropriate for an employee engagement thing. So it doesn’t mean that you have to do this bells and whistles Tesco relationship everyone sees.
Simon Scriver: It’s like, it’s finding, finding the match for them that suits both of you, I guess.
Andy King: Absolutely.
Simon Scriver: Um, stigma affected causes. You know, uh, like I mentioned sexual abuse there, but domestic abuse, you know, even mental health, uh, maybe not so much these days, um, but addiction, you know, there’s some, some I don’t wanna say taboo charities, but ones that are di- more difficult for companies, or they might feel nervous being associated with.
Simon Scriver: Um, how do you get past that stage?
Andy King: It’s hard- Mm-hmm … is, is the honest answer. It’s possible. It’s hard. Mm-hmm. Um, finding companies that empathize rather than stigmatize will be a big part of that. So who already has sympathy or empathy for those people? For example, lots of child abuse or young people, uh, exploitation charities partner quite heavily with, like, fast food restaurants and chicken shops, because that’s where those young people are hanging out, and those companies want to equip their staff with what they need to support them.
Andy King: And so there’s already a natural sympathy and empathy going in the direction that’s needed. Um, lots of alcohol abuse charities work with alcohol companies, because alcohol companies are part of the problem but could also be part of the solution, for example. In the mental health space, I would say Samaritans are a really great example.
Andy King: In the debt space, I would say Money Advice Trust do really well. Going back to that very first question you asked, Simon, about, like, how do you do this? You look for examples of charities that are doing it. Stop trying to cook Indian food when you’ve never eaten Indian food. Go and find the examples in those kind of equivalent street markets.
Simon Scriver: And I suppose that’s the same with those politically sensitive areas, you know, if you’re working with perhaps refugees or, or whatever- Exactly … um, and I suppose any niche courses. It’s, again, it’s, it’s matching, isn’t it? It’s finding the ones that kind of sit in that space or are open to
Andy King: them. Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll say in any of those cases, rather than fixating on the solution you’re funding, think about that problem that you exist to solve and what that problem feels like emotionally.
Simon Scriver: Mm.
Andy King: We did some work with Wikimedia- The charity that fund Wikipedia alongside other projects. You might think it’s really hard to get emotional about Wikipedia, ’cause it’s just an encyclopedia on the internet.
Andy King: But actually, when we got into the problem that they exist to solve, it’s that it’s not safe to admit that you’re wrong anymore, that it’s really hard to find a safe place to change your mind, because we’re so polarized as a society.
Simon Scriver: Interesting.
Andy King: And they found these beautiful stories about someone who, through reading Wikipedia articles, realized that their trans brother was not making it up and being trans is a thing, and that led to the reconciliation with their brother.
Andy King: We heard some incredible stories about the number of people who decided that they would in fact get the COVID vaccination because of the neutral information on Wikipedia. And when you go to that problem statement, it’s not safe to change your mind anymore, that’s really easy to find companies that care about- Mm
Andy King: because there are loads of companies that require critical thinking skills, agile information, et cetera, and they’re doing quite well in the corporate space now. So get fixated on the problem you exist to solve and the emotions that brings up will be an easier way to feel less niche.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. That’s amazing.
Simon Scriver: I love that repackaging. That’s very good. We often get into… I b- I don’t want to say a debate, but lots of conversations about small versus big. You know- Mm … the cause is always greener on the other side. The smalls think the bigs have advantage, big think small. Who has the advantage? Who, who sits in a more comfortable p- place with these corporate partnerships?
Andy King: It depends. We will give you answers of what it depends on in that research in September, but, uh, it, yeah, it depends. Yeah.
Andy King: And I think it’s always easy to fixate on the cases where you have the disadvantage and make that the rule. But as you’ve said, every cause has advantages in some arenas, and we will do our best to tell you what, uh, what arenas you would have advantage in in September.
Simon Scriver: Amazing. I very much look forward to that, and we will link to it, uh, in the session in the description of this podcast. Do come along and join us for that and all of our upcoming events. Uh, we have Andy joining us for a few things on the calendar, um, but we always have our relationship fundraising fundamentals course, which is getting great feedback, so very grateful for Andy.
Simon Scriver: And as we come to the last question, just on that small charity as well I, if a small charity is listening to this, how do they give a corporate partner more meaningful recognition? I know often they feel like they can’t, you know, they don’t have the resources to do big campaigns, big mailing lists.
Simon Scriver: What can small charities offer?
Andy King: I’m gonna give a, a, a question answer which is, do you know the difference between recognition and appreciation?
Simon Scriver: Mm.
Andy King: So recognition happens in public and appreciation happens in private. Recog- recognizing you for your role in this podcast, Simon, might be that I go on LinkedIn and I post, “I had a great chat with Simon Scriver and it was so great,” and drive people to your profile.
Andy King: Whereas appreciation might be that I WhatsApp you after being like, “Hey, Simon- Aw … thanks for the chat. Thanks so much for your time.” Small charities cannot compete with recognition because they don’t have the audience. But they can compete in appreciation by sending really thoughtful stewardship
Multiple Speakers: notes.
Multiple Speakers: Mm.
Andy King: We go back to that five categories of what companies want: impact reporting, marketing comms, recognition service user engagement, and colleague engagement. If you can’t compete in recognition, don’t. Compete in appreciation instead.
Simon Scriver: Mm. And appreciation can make you feel just so wonderful, can’t it?
Simon Scriver: It’s just that makes it feel like your world instead of the world. Exactly. Whatever. Um, coming to the last question from the mailbag, Andy. Homemade marketing materials versus professionally glossy, amazing brochures. What should we be doing? What should we be giving in these corporate partnerships?
Simon Scriver: What works better?
Andy King: Yeah, it’s a, it’s a great question to which as with all of these, there’s a, there’s a balance. Don’t have typos. Yeah. Is a, is a,
Simon Scriver: is a- Homemade can still be spelled right, yeah.
Andy King: And it’s that. Homemade but polished is great. It does not need corporate slick- Mm … but it does need to look professional.
Andy King: You can do something in Word, you can do something in PowerPoint, you can do something in Canva. You don’t need, like, a glossy presentation or, uh, to send a proposal on thick cut paper- Mm … as long as you have proofread and spell-checked what you’re sending over.
Simon Scriver: Yeah. Fair. Love it. That’s the end, Andy. We’ve reached the bottom of my mailbag.
Simon Scriver: Uh- There you
Andy King: go. It’s b-
Simon Scriver: been a wonderful Ask the Expert, and you did really well. Yeah, that was a lot of questions for you. I’m sorry to throw so much at you, but great answers. Really helpful.
Andy King: Always a good time. Thank you so much for asking me.
Simon Scriver: Um, Andy, for people who wanna keep following from you, and I high- I highly recommend you follow Andy, he shares so much good stuff, um, where’s the best place to find you?
Simon Scriver: Where do we find you and Fireside?
Andy King: I am more of a LinkedIn profile than I am a human being. So- … uh, Andy King on LinkedIn. I’m the bold one, makes it fairly easy to find me. Fireside Fundraising put out research once a year. Last year is why companies give. This year will be how companies give. You can get both of those at firesidefundraising.com.
Andy King: Uh, and you can always email me on andy@firesidefundraising.com
Simon Scriver: too. Amazing. Thank you, Andy. We’ll drop those links into the description w- uh, as well. I do, uh, highly recommend Andy. And remember, we have our upcoming sessions, uh, which we’ll link into. We’ll link into the library if you wanna search for any of the other sessions that we mentioned.
Simon Scriver: Um, there’s a great library of stuff there. Um, and the Relationship Fundraising Fundamentals from Andy at Fireside is available now for members, uh, on demand. If you’re not a member, you can of course join and get access to that deeper dive course, which is getting such great feedback. Um, so that’s it, Andy.
Simon Scriver: Until next time, thank you so much for being here and, uh, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Andy King: Anytime. Cheers, Simon
Simon Scriver: And thank you all for listening. This has been the Fundraising Everywhere podcast. My name is Simon Scriver. Uh, until next time, see you again
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