38. Ben Swart – Strategic corporate partnerships; why now more than ever

For many years, the orthodox way to secure a charitable partnership has been to apply through a formal process to the biggest companies. It usually involves several stages, is time-consuming, and only has one winner. Though there are upsides to this model, (especially for the lucky few charities whose brand is popular enough to win the staff vote that is often the final hurdle), there are many downsides, especially if your charity is less well known. Another option is to proactively seek partnerships with companies where there can be a strategic fit, and which far fewer charities are pursuing. In this episode, I explore with corporate fundraising expert Ben Swart, the reasons why the trend for strategic partnerships is growing. He explains this is in part influenced by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. And though there are clear benefits to strategic partnerships, they usually require a greater level of proactivity on the part of the fundraiser. In this discussion, we explore the issues as well as four of the tactics from Bright Spot’s Corporate Mastery Programme that we find help you to find and create these valuable partnerships in practice. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help other charities – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on twitter, where Ben is @benswart and I am @woods_rob. If you’d like more powerful strategies to help you raise funds during the pandemic, I cover lots of helpful tactics in my free E-book: Power Through The Pandemic – Seven ways to raise money with major donors, corporates and trusts, even now. You can download it for FREE here: www.brightspotfundraising.co.uk/power