Tag Archive for: income diversification

Introduction to Engaging with Businesses: Five Things I Wish I Knew

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Get synergised, have created this basic introduction to working with business on behalf of Support Cambridgeshire. We regularly collaborate with Get Synergised to support groups looking to make connections with businesses. This particular training is aimed at small charities and voluntary groups, whether you are at the beginning of your journey in engaging with businesses or seeking a refresher. 

 

Introduction to Engaging with Businesses: 5 Things I Wish I Knew

Hello and welcome to this Introduction to Engaging with Businesses: 5 Things I Wish I Knew, a recording for Support Cambridgeshire delivered by Get Synergised in partnership with Cambridge CVS and Hunts Forum.

This is one of several recordings developed to support small charities and voluntary groups in engaging with businesses. This recording includes some tips for success and is supported by a transcript and links that will take you to additional resources and information on the Get Synergised website.

Title Page

Introduction to Engaging with Businesses: 5 Things I Wish I Knew

If you are beginning your journey in engaging with businesses or seeking a refresher, this on-demand training video presents five insights that you probably wish you knew.

By avoiding common pitfalls, you’ll be well-prepared to cultivate partnerships with businesses eager to support you and your mission to help diversify income and resources for greater sustainability.

Slide 1

Firstly – Why Does Partnering with Businesses Benefit Your Organisation?

  • Expanded Resources: Businesses can provide financial support, in-kind donations, and access to expertise, enhancing your organisation’s capabilities and impact.
  • Enhanced Visibility and Credibility: Partnering with reputable businesses can elevate your organisation’s profile and credibility within the community and among stakeholders.
  • Innovative Solutions: Collaboration with businesses can spark innovation and creativity, leading to new ideas and approaches for tackling social challenges.
  • Sustainable Relationships: Establishing partnerships with businesses fosters long-term relationships built on shared values, which can lead to ongoing support and collaboration.

Now we know that, let’s delve into the 5 Things I Wish I Knew.

Slide 2

Introduction to Engaging with Businesses: 5 Things I Wish I Knew

  1. Think About What You Might Need from a Business
  2. Take Time to Build Relationships
  3. Align Goals and Values
  4. Confidently Make That Initial Ask and Contact
  5. Always Follow Up, Celebrate Success, and Give Thanks

Slide 3

Think About What You Might Need from a Business

When engaging with businesses, it’s crucial to consider and request support beyond just financial contributions – although monetary support is indeed significant. Businesses are busy, so a well-defined request helps them understand exactly how they can contribute and what is needed. Here are some points on how to prepare to maximise your chances of success:

  • Time:
    • Volunteer Opportunities: Clearly outline how much time you need from business volunteers and what specific activities they will be involved in. For example, you might need volunteers for pro bono expertise or a fundraising event.
    • Flexible Options: Offer flexible volunteering opportunities that can fit into busy schedules on both sides, such as virtual volunteering or short-term projects.
  • Skills:
    • Skill-Based Volunteering: Identify specific skills that would benefit your nonprofit and seek volunteers who can provide those skills. For example, you might need help with marketing, graphic design, legal advice, or IT support.
    • Professional Development: Highlight how volunteering can also benefit their employees by providing professional development opportunities and enhancing their skills.
  • Expertise:
    • Advisory Roles: Invite business leaders to join advisory boards, trustee boards, or committees where their expertise can guide your non-profit’s strategy and operations.
    • Workshops and Training: Request experts to conduct workshops or training sessions for your staff or beneficiaries. For instance, financial experts could offer financial literacy workshops.
  • Resources:
    • In-Kind Donations: Specify what physical resources or equipment you need. This could range from office supplies, technology, or transportation.
    • Rooms and Space: Request meeting rooms or event spaces that the business can provide.
  • Finance:
    • Monetary Donations: Clearly outline the financial support you need, specifying amounts and how the funds will be used.
    • Sponsorship Opportunities: Offer sponsorship packages for events or programmes, detailing the benefits the business will receive in return, such as branding opportunities, meeting ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) goals, recognition, and networking.

Slide 4

Take Time to Build Relationships

  • Personal Connections: Develop personal relationships with key individuals in the business, rather than just seeking money and going in with a hard ask. Take the time to understand their motivations, interests, and values. Personal connections and warm introductions can strengthen the partnership and facilitate smoother collaboration.
  • Understand the Business: Research the company if you can. Understand their mission, values, corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, and any past involvement with non-profits. This helps tailor your approach and shows that you’ve done your homework.
  • Identify the Right Person: Find out who the decision-makers are through a bit of research or asking others if you can. This might be someone in the CSR department, marketing, HR, or even the CEO, depending on the size and structure of the business.

Slide 5

Align Goals and Values

  • Good Fit: When looking for businesses to meet your asks, think about which businesses would be a good fit, might share your values, where they might be located, and what industries might be able to help you with what you need.
  • Know Your Own Mission, Vision, and Values: Be clear about your own non-profit’s mission, vision, and values to find the best alignment with potential business partners.

 

Slide 6

Confidently Make That Initial Ask and Contact

  • Personalise Your Approach: Tailor your message/email to the specific business and individual. Mention any common ground and keep your message brief and to the point, including a clear call to action that encourages a response.
  • Highlight What’s in It for Them: Shift the focus to their interests – why should they care? Clearly explain how your non-profit’s mission aligns with their goals and values.
  • Utilise Storytelling: Craft a compelling narrative that introduces your non-profit, what you do, the impact you make, and how it relates to the business. Explain the reason for reaching out and the potential synergy between your missions.
  • Utilise Existing Networks: If possible, leverage mutual connections to facilitate an introduction. A warm introduction significantly enhances the likelihood of a positive response.
  • Attend Networking Events: Engage in events where business leaders are present. These venues offer opportunities for face-to-face interactions and deeper engagement.
  • Phone Calls: Direct calls can sometimes be more effective. Be prepared with a concise pitch and ready to address any inquiries.
  • Utilise Social Media: Platforms like LinkedIn are effective for connecting with business professionals. Craft a concise and polite message outlining your purpose or share your organisation’s needs on the platform.
  • Propose a Meeting: Request a brief meeting to explore potential collaboration. Offer flexible scheduling options and suggest a few dates and times that work for them.
  • Articulate What You Can Offer: Describe the mutual benefits of collaboration, emphasising how their involvement will create a positive impact and meet their CSR goals, among other business benefits. Use stories, data, and examples to illustrate the value and potential returns on their investment.

Slide 7

Always Follow Up, Celebrate Success, and Give Thanks

  • Prompt Follow-Up: If you don’t receive a response within a week or two, send a polite follow-up email or call to reiterate your interest and inquire about their decision.
  • Share Impact Stories: Share stories and experiences that illustrate the impact of your partnership. Highlighting real examples and successes can reinforce the value of the collaboration and inspire continued support.
  • Thank Them: Regardless of the outcome, thank them for their time and consideration. This leaves a positive impression and opens the door for future opportunities.

Slide 8

Case Study Examples

  • Mills & Reeve and Hannah Nunn Kick Starter Coffee
  • Tees Law and Cambridge Acorn Project Legal Clinic

Slide 9

Benefits of Adopting Effective Partnership Strategies

  • Saves time and money
  • Enhance ROI (Return on Investment)
  • Maximise resource collaboration potential
  • Support sustainability of your organisation

Slide 10

Final Words – Image slide

We hope that you have enjoyed this short video, “An Introduction to Engaging with Businesses: 5 Things I Wish I Knew.” Hopefully, you now feel more equipped with some key points to get you off the starting block or to refresh your partnership strategy in this area for greater success.

Building influential relationships with corporate business partners, if done correctly, will help you diversify your income and resources while also boosting your credibility, profiling your organisation, reaching new audiences, making an even greater impact in your community, and sustaining your operations.

If you’re seeking to take your corporate partnership to the next level, we encourage you to enrol in our Foundation Course, “Winning Corporate Partnerships in 5 Steps.” This course will teach you to understand what businesses are looking for to attract their attention and how to use your time more efficiently to achieve better results with a proven strategic, relationship-first approach. It will also give you an overview of our strategic blueprint to help you build your Corporate Partnership Strategy.

Discover more about our courses, or subscribe to our newsletter for insightful tips and updates by taking a look at our website – www.getsynergised.com

Brought to you in collaboration with Support Cambridgeshire, CCVS, Hunts Forum and Get Synergised

 

 

Income diversification discussion for voluntary sector groups

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Background

Support Cambridgeshire ran 2 discussion groups with voluntary sector groups considering the barriers to diversifying their income streams and discussing solutions to build more sustainable futures.

Group 1: comprised 4 smaller organisations with incomes of less than £50k per annum. The groups were a mixture of charities and CICs, all serving different local communities from a variety of perspectives, The current main source of income of for each organisation was grants, with some donations, sales, and member/subscription fees

Group 2: comprised 4 registered charities with turnovers exceeding £100k pa. Their main income sources were grants and contracts and in one case major donors. The funding streams engaged with were:

  • Grants
  • Contracts
  • One-off donations from individuals/online/text/bucket collections
  • Regular donations from individuals through direct debits
  • Large donations from individuals
  • Fundraising via organisational events
  • Fundraising by supporters
  • Sponsorship and business donations
  • Legacy giving
  • Trading through sale of goods and services
  • Donations from other organisations eg Rotary Club

Challenges to diversifying income

We asked the groups about the challenges they are facing in diversifying their income and what ideas they had around the support needed to help them generate more sustainable income.

The key challenges identified were:

  • Lack of capacity
  • Concerns around risk
  • Legal restrictions
  • Need to prioritise beneficiaries
  • Demands made by funders
  • Demands from business supporters

Lack of capacity.  Both in terms of staff time and relevant expertise to find ways to diversify income

All the groups cited lack of capacity as an issue.  The smaller organisations highlighted the need to recruit more volunteers and in particular trustees with the right skills.  They also mentioned the need to offer training and development support for their (often voluntary) leadership teams.

‘The effort it takes to raise money through those kinds of things is so high I think you’ve got to be a charity of a certain size where you’re able to cover those fixed costs.  When you’re this small you’re adding to someone’s role creating a real burden’

Concerns around risk.  Groups are hesitant to explore new income streams due to fear of financial and operational risks.

‘So often these events (organisational fundraisers) represent a massive gamble in terms of resource and costs and certainly don’t deliver the hoped for income gains.’ 

‘We are reliant on what we can raise, we can’t borrow or attract investment.  The more successful we are in meeting our clients’ needs the less funds we have.’

  • The need to prioritise needs of beneficiaries before all else

‘We must be sensitive and respectful about the way we portray our beneficiaries. They don’t want to be labelled disadvantaged.’

‘The absolute priority is the experience for the coworker so that is above and beyond anything that we produce.’

Demands made by funders both around application hurdles, geographic boundaries and reporting

‘There is often a really high level of work for a very low level of donation’

‘We aim to support refugees but the funding we have been given will only support those refugees within a certain local authority boundary, whereas refugees live all over Cambridgeshire, on top of that we get referrals from social prescribers that we refuse because the person doesn’t come from the area we are funded’

Demands from business supporters that can conflict with a group’s mission or operational capabilities

‘ I learned my lesson a bit about over promising to corporates you’ve really got to get crystal clear on how much you can actually deliver for what they’re giving you.’

The smaller organisations also highlighted:

  • The volunteers and trustees supporting the organisation did not have the skills or time to effectively support the growth of the organisation, leading to inconsistent support.
  • Perception that Cambridge organisations were more likely to receive donations than organisation located outside of the City- how could that culture of giving be extended across the county?

How to address the challenges

  • Provide greater access to expert support and guidance
  • Develop more opportunities for networks and peer support learning
  • Encourage the right kind of business support
  • Change the dynamic with grant funders.
  • Create a county wide ‘social value’ brand for Cambridgeshire

Provide greater access to expert support and guidance:

  • Legal/Finance support around trading, legacy and payroll giving
  • Financial guidance and training around budgeting and pricing strategies
  • Fundraising expertise and help with fundraising event logistics
  • Strategic development support.

‘We need to be having more conversations about Legacy giving but I find that most of the resources out there about it are pitched at much larger charities.’

Develop networking and peer support learning and action groups

  • Large scale events that bring in a wide range of potential, customers, partners, collaborators and experts to network and to learn from
  • Peer networks such as small charity CEO networks

Encourage the right kind of business support

The smaller organisations highlighted building relationships with businesses via business networks and The Get Synergised platform to help broker relationships.

The larger organisations had all experience of receiving support and income from businesses and want to improve the way voluntary organisations and business interact by:

  • Promoting the confidence of charity leaders in asking major donors and businesses for money without creating expectations that add additional demands on limited resources

‘We worry we aren’t qualified to talk to potential major donors but our knowledge of delivering front line services makes us passionate and credible.  This is our superpower.’

‘Sometimes it’s enough just to say can you give us some money – we don’t have to sugarcoat it or negotiate or discuss what you’ll get in return’

  • Persuading business to recognise the value of charity time and expertise and consider payroll giving

‘We’ve been lucky in having a few key businesspeople who’ve then been very generous with their contacts and that’s the way that we have become a little bit more known and garnered business donations.  The great thing about business donations from our point of view is that they are in the main unrestricted.’

‘Promoting your charity as an option for payroll giving is a really good one to put back to corporates.’

  • Promote more opportunities for collaboration with key institutions including universities

Change the dynamic with grant funders Title: Supporting Income Diversification for Voluntary Sector Groups Main Content: • Introduction: o Support Cambridgeshire conducted two focus groups with voluntary sector charities and CICs. The goal was to explore barriers to income diversification, potential solutions, and the future if no action is taken. • Barriers: o Lack of capacity o Concerns around risk o Legal restrictions o Need to prioritize beneficiaries over income o Demands made by funders o Demands from business supporters • Solutions: o Provide access to expert support and guidance o Develop more networks and peer support learning o Encourage appropriate business support o Change the dynamic with grant funders o Create a county-wide "social value" brand • The Future Without Change: o Reduced capacity to meet beneficiary needs o Staff burnout o Smaller organizations may not survive • Impact of Session: o Participants found the sessions very or extremely useful. They gained valuable insights and ideas to benefit their organizations, particularly regarding income diversification. The sessions also provided an opportunity to share experiences and best practices. Visual Elements: • Icons illustrating each section, such as a magnifying glass, a speech bubble, and a checkmark, are used to reinforce the points visually. The infographic uses a colour scheme of teal, orange, yellow, and green with bold and clear fonts.

Advocate for grant makers to adopt more flexible, long-term funding strategies that support capacity building and income generation Persuade funders to make their requirements proportionate.

Creating a countywide ‘social value’ brand to support individual marketing

County marketing to build a social value network in Cambridgeshire leveraging collective strength and raising the profile of their work within the county.

The future without change

We asked the groups what are the consequences of continuing with their existing funding models and where did they think they would be in 18 months’ time?  The larger organisations expected to still be in existence in 18 months’ time but had concerns about their capacity to deliver services and the wellbeing of their staff and volunteers.  The smaller organisations agreed that in the medium term they needed to change their current funding model if they were to survive.

The groups focussed on:

  • Staff burnout

‘Something’s got to shift either we have to grow (and take on more capacity and expertise) or shrink.  We can’t sustain where we are now.’

‘I am the only person who writes the funds, manages and reports on them and it is only a small part of my job – burnout is a concern’

  • The dangers of having an inbuilt cycle of short-term planning

‘Our horizons are short term.  I don’t have a road map into next year, it is hand to mouth all the time.’

‘We will carry on, but we have a crumbling building that needs work and issues with keeping our staff motivated.’

 

Impact of focus group sessions

The groups’ feedback was that the sessions were very useful or extremely useful and agreed they had gained something to benefit their organisations.  They welcomed the opportunity to share experiences and best practice and took away income diversification ideas to discuss with their own organisations.

‘It was reassuring learning about the issues that other managers were experiencing, and the similarity with mine! Particular approaches to fundraising were especially useful and the commonality around the balancing act of being both inclusive and money focused.’

If you are interested in discussing ideas around income diversification for your not for profit organisation, please get in touch: enquiries@cambridgecvs.org.uk