Best Business-Charity Partnership
Howard Lake | 30 May 2008 | Blogs
For the best relationship between a charity and a business that in any way provides benefit to the charity within the eligibility criteria. Applications can be of any size or scale.
And the shortlisted entries, in alphabetical order, are:
Breast Cancer Care’s partnership with Lloyds TSB Group – ‘Near to You, Here for You’
The objectives of this campaign were to raise £1m (a bespoke UK-wide programme of community services for people affected by breast cancer); raise awareness of breast cancer and BCC to the Lloyds TSB Group’s 68,000 employers and its customers; and spread vital breast health awareness messages through the Lloyds TSB Group.
The target of £1m was significant as BCC’s annual income at the start of the partnership was £12.8m, and the campaign actually raised £2.1m with an RoI of 13.4 and led to continued financial support from the Lloyds TSB Group employees and customers. To raise this the Group supported a National ‘In the Pink’ day in October, engaged 400 charity champions in the work of Breast Cancer Care, increased the uptake of payroll giving in support of BCC. BCC exhibited at the Lloyds TSB Women’s Network annual conference. Existing communication channels were supplement by the introduction pf a charity of the year Intranet site to spread awareness messages throughout October. The Near to You, Here for You bus tour visited 15 towns in the UK during the summer promoting BCC’s Text Pink to Donate mechanism.
As well as being the first charity of the year partnership BCC has undertaken, it has been the most successful for Lloyds TSB and has raised the profile of its CSR.
British Red Cross and Tesco
The BRC was Tesco’s charity of the year in 2007, raising £4,428,000 in 12 months with a predicted RoI of 10.4:1, against a target of £2m. Fundraising began in January with collection tins on tills and launch events in stores. In February Tesco charity greetings cards raised over £250,000. Canon launched a red camera in Tesco stores – the sale of 5,000 of these raised £25,000. Red Cross Week followed in May the the Tesco Pharmacy team’s annual ball raised £60,000. The flooding in July drew a £100,000 donation from Tesco itself. In September, the largest ever cross-brand charity CRM, ‘One of Britain’s Favourites’ raised £751,000 for the British Red Cross.
This was the most successful fundraising partnership to date, and possibly the most lucrative charity of the year partnership the charity sector has ever seen. Both parties benefited hugely with significant media coverage generating favourable reaction to both parties.
Scout Association and Sainsbury’s
Scouting celebrated its centenary in 2007 and one of the objectives of this partnership was to raise £100,000 – £1,000 for every year of Scouting – through Sainsbury’s Community Week. It also sought to recruit 100 new 16-25 year old volunteers, promoting active lifestyles, raise awareness of Scouting’s adventure brand and provide a mechanism for Sainsbury’s staff and customers to volunteer. It also provided a retail infrastructure at the 21st World Scout Jamboree in Summer 2007 for 100,000 people. In addition, it was the first major national charity partnership taken up by Sainsbury’s nationwide.
Results far outweighed targets with £264,500 raised and 400 new 16-25 year old leaders being recruited. A further 315 adults and 1,333 youth members were recruited. Sainsbury’s has plans to continue supporting Scouting in innovative new ways, including a new system to deliver groceries direct to campsites.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.