Two in five charities are struggling to attract corporate partners, but what’s the key to success?
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Corporate partners are becoming increasingly important for charities, to help raise funds and awareness, as well as engage with volunteers from local businesses.

Income from such link ups is especially important in the months ahead, particularly as some funders have paused applications for grants while they review their funding processes.

City Bridge Foundation, Schroder Charity Trust and the Will Charitable Trust all announced in the autumn a suspension of their grant giving.

But research has found charities are struggling to find businesses to form corporate partnerships with.

Two in five charities across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland who want to collaborate with the private sector have yet to find a corporate partner, this found.

The picture is even more stark in Wales where three in five who want to link up with businesses have failed to secure such a private sector partnership.

Social value management platform What Impact, which has carried out the research, says the findings show a “critical need for more effective engagement strategies” between charities and firms.

Here we look at the barriers to effective partnerships and ways these can be overcome.

Barriers

The biggest obstacle for charities in finding a corporate partner is a lack of “sufficient funding to hire people and run our programmes”, as charities look to increasingly cut costs and are forced to fire fight rather than spend money they would like to on income generation schemes.

Lack of funding was cited by just over half of charity workers that responded in England, Scotland and North Ireland, and seven in ten of those based in Wales.

Other barriers, highlighted in What Impact’s research, include a lack of professional trustees to support partnerships and difficulties f inding volunteers from corporate partners who can commit to giving up meaningful hours to work for the charity.

One in five charities cited volunteering difficulties, such as staff from local firms only able to help for one day, when more regular consistent help is needed.

‘It’s usually only for a day or two, we need someone prepared to commit to an eight-week programme,” said one charity representative.

Finding time to organise corporate volunteering is another issue.

“The time taken to set up the work they did was not much saving on existing people doing it,” said another charity worker surveyed.

Poor communication is another problem.

Charities are reporting that simple tasks such as finding the right people within firms to engage with is particularly time-consuming. One respondent said they had no contact with potential volunteers at a corporate firm, “only senior managers”.

Another issue is firms assuming that charities can host large groups of corporate volunteers.

“They often want to bring too many people,” said one charity representative “They fail to understand the costs of hosting them. Overall, we love working with corporate volunteers, but it is a job to manage them well.’

Firms also fail to appreciate the value of charity leaders’ time, with one charity chief executive bemoaning that firms “often want a lot of leadership time for not a huge amount of funding”.

“It needs a dedicated role to build the relationship and develop it. As a CEO it’s hard to prioritise this when the services need my focus,” adds this charity leader.

Overcoming challenges

An important way for charities to secure and attract corporate partners is for greater understanding of each other’s organisations.

This includes charities and firms understanding their missions and needs. One charity representative surveyed by What Impact says that often larger firms opt for charitable causes focused on children’s issues and cancer related care “which is fair enough” as often staff have a personal connection to these causes.

But too often firms do not look to explore other good causes. This charity representative adds “we are not a cuddly cause” and despite being contacted by firms they “never get the callback”.

One Wales based charity worker urged firms to look at linking up with small charities and “consider specific local needs” rather than focus on “the overall annual turnover” of the charity.

What Impact says successful collaborations “involve a shared understanding” of differences between private and voluntary sector organisations, which are run differently in terms of budget and motivations around profit.

“We use a lot of goodwill and collaboration rather than competition, meaning some of our processes look a little inefficient to people operating for profit,” said one charity worker.

“It is important for the private sector to not undermine the value of the organisations they work with and recognise that skills and knowledge transfer works both ways.

Specific ways the relationship between private and third sectors can improve is for corporate volunteers to give up their time at weekends, which may be more convenient for some charities than weekday volunteering.

Another is for firms to better understand charities’ limited resources. For example, as well as offering advice and expertise firms should help charities pay to enact ideas being given.

Covering costs during partnerships is also important.

One food charity representative said corporate partners “think they are doing us a favour, but it costs us money to provide basic food safety, health and safety and waste management training, plus supervision while they are on-site”.

Another said, “although not super exciting, what we really need and appreciate is donations towards our core running costs – cash or materials”.

Charities “are eager to work with private sector organisations” but communication regarding “mutually beneficial partnership arrangements needs improving”, says What Impact.

“There should be a candid conversation about what both parties wish to get out of the partnership to see whether a match is possible”.

Unconditional funding from corporate partners, which is not earmarked for a specific project, is called for by half of charities who responded to separate research released this year by C&E Advisory Services.

But four in five firms say it is unlikely they will be able to provide such flexible funding for charities they partner with.

This research also found widespread pessimism among charities that corporate partners will increase the level of investment in link ups. Only one in eight think investment from firms in partnerships will increase this year, although a third of private sector partners believe charities will see more money from their link ups.

This difference in expectation between charities and firms further indicates a lack of understanding between their sectors about what can be achieved through a corporate partnership.

Businesses and charities also need to end a “short-termism” in many relationships and instead foster long term partnerships that aim to create meaningful change to people’s lives, according to further research by Pro Bono Economics.

Its business and charity partnership report, which was published in October, found that when partners “are united by a genuine shared purpose, they can drive systemic change that benefits society.

Successful partnerships

Among successful partnerships highlighted by Pro Bono Economics is Gloucestershire Deaf Association’s link up with insurance firm Benefact Group, which is headquartered in the county. Their partnership looks to drive long term change in support and attitudes to deaf people through awareness raising and training.

Another is Strand Palace Hotel’s work with Only A Pavement Away by helping people facing homelessness by finding them work within the hospitality sector. This shared goal serves both charity and partner.

Meanwhile, strong charity corporate link ups cited in C&E Advisory Services’ research, includes Tesco’s six-year partnership with Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK.This combines both the retailer’s and charities’ missing to improve people’s health under the strapline “helping you to live healthier”.

Through the partnership Tesco staff and customers are involved in fundraising and health awareness raising.

As of autumn 2024, the partnership has raised £29m for the three charities to fund medical research. Benefits for the retailer have included the charities’ support with its ‘Let’s Talk’ training programme for its pharmacists.

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