Corporate partners urged to provide unrestricted funding to charities
Melanie May | 18 October 2022 | News
Corporate partners are being urged to support charities through the current funding crisis by providing funding to meet essential needs. In a new report from Benefact Group, 81% of charities say they would like to see this offered.
The report draws on insight from beneficiaries of last year’s Movement for Good awards as well as a survey of 250 charities, exploring the last 12 months for the charity sector, and offering practical advice on how to foster genuine two-way relationships with corporate partners.
It finds that charities are struggling to fundraise while facing increasing demands for their services – leading to a cashflow crisis.
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In response, 81% of charities want corporates to provide unrestricted funding so they can use the money to meet essential needs, such as the recruitment and retention of staff, like salaries and welfare benefits. Many corporate partners require charities to submit a bid for funds linked to a specific project or outcome. By lifting restrictions on how funds can be used, corporate partners can further aid charities in achieving their goals while still meeting their own corporate social responsibilities.
Coralie Hopwood from FarmAbility, one of the large grant winners who took part in the roundtables said:
“To find unrestricted funding is gold dust to us, because we can use it flexibly and we can use it on our core endeavours. It means we can more easily adapt to changing circumstances as we go through the year.”
The issues cited by charities include the challenge of recruiting staff (75%) with 34% saying that they have struggled to recruit over the past six months. This is despite improving their employee packages, with 43% offering a bonus scheme and two in five offering permanent flexible working.
One in five charities say they are significantly understaffed and nearly three quarters say they are moderately understaffed. According to the survey, the lack of staff has directly impacted on the amount of funding charities are receiving as well as the amount of service users that charities can support.
The report also found that 72% of charities believe that the future of their charity is more in doubt today than it was before the pandemic.
Chris Pitt, Group Impact Director at Benefact Group, said:
“At Benefact Group we believe business should be a force for good. In these challenging times, as charities struggle to cope with the impact of coronavirus, we think this is more important than ever.
“Owned by a charity, we make profits so that we can contribute to the greater good of society. While our model is different, we think all businesses can adopt this philosophy to some degree.
“We wanted to produce this report to help charities and businesses better understand how they can get the most of their partnerships. We’re incredibly grateful to our Movement for Good beneficiaries for sharing their experiences, inspiration and insight to help shape this guide. We hope this guide will help prepare charities and their business partners to better support each other in the uncertain days ahead.”
The Movement for Good awards is giving away over £1 million this year. In June and September, 500 charities were awarded a £1,000 donation, and a further 120 £1,000 charitable donations will be given away in December. The winners of the larger grants of £10,000 or more will be announced in October.
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.