# Cost-of-living crisis increases as focus for UK business-nonprofit partnerships

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2023/09/13/cost-of-living-crisis-increases-as-focus-for-uk-business-nonprofit-partnerships/
- Published: 2023-09-13T09:00:00+01:00
- Author: Melanie May

**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.

## Advertisement

 [⌊Posthub advert. You create the campaign. We'll handle the postal journey. Get started at post-hub.co.uk.⌉](https://fundraising.co.uk/ads/posthub-20261007-300x250/)

 * 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.”