Guest blog written by Andy King, Director at Fireside Fundraising. Andy King is an award-winning storyteller. In July 2022, Fundraising Magazine named him ‘the most influential fundraiser in the UK’. Andy’s passion is helping charities tell their most important stories to those with the power to change the ending.
In our webinar on the 11th September we ran through Why Companies Give (in their own words). You can access the recording of the webinar here and the full research here, but we know there were plenty of questions from the audience that we didn’t get to – so we wanted to share Andy’s answers to these in writing!
What are your thoughts on the recent findings from CAF Corporate Giving report 2025? 75% of UK businesses did nothing to support charities last year.
One of the headline findings of our research is simply this: company giving isn’t a given.
It was clear through the interviews that we conducted that companies, as a collective, feel like they owe more to their shareholders than to anyone else – and that the route to getting more companies to give is to show the value giving has to their shareholders.
That said, it’s important not to read the 75% stat and reach for doom and gloom, for two reasons:
- A lot of the companies who don’t give are smaller companies, who like you are trying to survive. The CAF report itself details this: nearly half of companies over £100 million turnover give to charities, which feels like a much fairer representation.
- This statistic represents a lot of opportunity. With so much money in the corporate sector, and a clear guide to getting them to give (detailed in our report) we should be optimistic about the growth potential this shows.
How do we get companies to behave better? We’ve experienced inconsistency & goal shifting, or had companies simply try and use us to grow their mailing list.
We’ve blended a few questions here, but it boils down to the fact we heard a fair whack of frustration from fundraisers. This was particularly the case as we spoke about company expectations of professionalism (detailed on pages 37 – 42) and the fact companies aren’t always professional either.
Our recommendation is to make your curiosity bigger than your frustration, and drive yourself to ask open-ended questions. For example, if they’re pushing to use your email channel, ask them what the metric they’re trying to improve is – and if there are other routes to improving that metric. Or if they keep changing their minds, ask them who the decision maker is and what moves the needle for that person / if there’s a way to bring more consistency in your conversations. So much of corporate fundraising boils down to being willing to ask the bold question… Because ultimately, companies expect boldness.
Do you know of any reversed research in this space? Like a guide for companies looking to start/improve their corporate giving, steered by charity voices?
We know that Charities Aid Foundation have guides to company giving, which you can read here, which we know is steered by former charity voices.
Fireside are also sponsoring some research being conducted by Rachel Holborow in what corporate fundraisers need to succeed in their own words, which we believe will be ready in November. If you’ve downloaded our report, we’ll email you when Rachel’s is ready too!
Are we more likely to get responses from top-down decision makers, or bottom-up decision makers? Should we be proactively reaching out, or waiting for approaches?
This question refers to the findings detailed on page 22 of the full research (which you can download here) that there are broadly two decision makers – a top-down decision maker who is choosing you for business alignment reasons and a bottom-up decision maker who is choosing you because they’re personally invested in your organisation. The top-down decision maker holds the purse strings themselves, whereas a bottom-up decision maker campaigns on your behalf. This person is likely to be an ‘internal champion’ who’ll access money for you.
By the very nature of why they care, you’re more likely to get responses from a bottom-up decision maker – but only if your cause attracts them naturally. Health charities, for instance, are likely to have an easier time than financial literacy organisations.
We’d recommend proactively reaching out as much as possible. While there are steps you can take to increase the likelihood of companies coming to you (which we’d be happy to help you with), it never hurts to be proactive.
Where can we get more?
You can access the webinar recording here.
You can get the full report here.