Cost-of-living crisis increases as focus for UK business-nonprofit partnerships
Melanie May | 13 September 2023 | News
The cost-of-living crisis has intensified as a major issue of focus for business-nonprofit partnerships in the UK, according to a new report.
The C&E Corporate-Non-Profit Partnerships Barometer 2023 saw C&E Advisory gauge the views of professionals from companies and nonprofit organisations in the UK and further afield. The annual report explores the motivations, changing practices, barriers and challenges, as well as future prospects for the cross-sector partnering agenda.
It shows that the cost-of-living crisis remains a dominant theme for business-nonprofit partners across the globe, with significant increases from both sides in responding to economic hardships, as well as environmental and other challenges.
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- Almost all respondents said the cost-of-living crisis now features in their partnerships, with 20% more corporate partners now saying this is the case compared to last year.
- Two-thirds of corporate and nonprofit respondents identified the need to access hard-to-reach or low-income beneficiaries / customers.
- 61% of corporates identified better determining the impact of their interventions.
- Almost all nonprofits (95%) identify the need to raise funds and generate resources as key ways in which partnerships between companies and nonprofits are helping to address the challenges arising from the cost-of-living crisis.
Commenting on the findings, C&E Advisory CEO, Manny Amadi, said:
“The challenges posed by the cost-of-living crisis continue to put pressure on society – so it is hugely encouraging to see corporate-non-profit partnerships reporting that they are even more actively engaged in addressing such challenges through their partnerships this year.
“There is also a strong expectation from partnership practitioners that partnerships will take on greater future importance – and this may reflect the increased pressure on partners during these resource-constrained times.”
This year’s Barometer also took a specific look at the likely relevance of AI to partnerships in the years to come. Most corporates and nonprofits anticipate AI playing a big role in research – but not so in their selection of who to partner with. Overall, it suggests use of AI is yet to feature significantly in cross-sector partnering, although 19% of nonprofits and 24% of corporates expect to apply AI to aspects of their partnerships in the year ahead.
Most admired partnerships
The 2023 Barometer also asked corporate and nonprofit respondents to identify their most admired corporate-nonprofit partnerships.
The Tesco, Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation, and Diabetes UK health-based partnership came top. This collaboration started in 2018 and as well as delivering health insights and interventions, it has raised over £25mn for the charities.
The Boots UK–Macmillan Cancer Support partnership was the runner up, and has figured consistently highly in the Barometer’s rankings for over a decade. In third place is the Tesco-WWF partnership, which aims to halve the environmental impact of the average UK shopping basket.
Commenting on these findings, Amadi said:
“These organisations and partnerships are identified and admired by their peers for demonstrating strong and intuitive linkages between business purpose and their chosen causes; for the scale of their intent and efforts; and for the commitment with which the partners are leveraging and pooling relevant assets to achieve their joint goals. They are all to be congratulated.”
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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.