Best Business-Charity Partnership
Howard Lake | 19 June 2007 | Blogs
For the best relationship between a charity and a business that in any way provides benefit to the charity. Applications could be of any size or scale.
The shortlisted nominations are, in alphabetical order:
Burton and the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK
Most people, but men particularly are reluctant to talk about bowel cancer. As 2006 was the 40th anniversary of both England World Cup victory and Burton dressing the 1966 team, Burton was chosen as the ideal partner to help raise awareness and funds to tackle bowel cancer.
The main aims were to enable the Fund and Cancer Research UK to reach Burton customers – mainly men under 35 – employees and the public with information; secure celebrity support; raise £150,000 and generate positive media coverage for both parties.
PR support included interviews with Stephanie Moore and high profile support from Michael Owen, Joe Cole and Ashley Cole designing and promoting t-shirts – 22,400 of which were sold during the campaign along with 72,000 wristbands. Burton’s employees raised over £17,500 – the first time they had raised funds for a cause across all its English stores.
Success was evaluated through income, expenditure, distribution of health messages, press coverage and website hits and clickthroughs. In total, Burton raised £191,376 for the Fund and the partnership was delivered with a cost ratio of 18%, resulting in a RoI of 5:1.A PR spend of £10,000 generated coverage of an advertising value equivalent of £440,000. The campaign has led to Burton agreeing to enter into a sustainable long-term partnership with Cancer Research UK.
‘Kitchens for All’ – Leonard Cheshire and Howdens Joinery
Well-designed kitchens are an important part of helping disabled people live independently, so Leonard Cheshire teamed up with Howdens Joinery, which is a leading trade supplier of kitchens with over 350 depots across the UK.
The aim was to make kitchens inclusive and accessible in Leonard Cheshire homes and day centres; raise funds to promote independent living and develop a range of accessible kitchens. No formal targets were put in place, but the campaign resulted in around £400,000 being raised over two years in cash, in-kind donations, employee fundraising and charity merchandise.
Howdens wanted to develop a range of accessible kitchens for disabled people and has now released a catalogue of 30 designs – none of which will cost any more than standard kitchens. In consultation with the charity, the company developed and installed 15 kitchens in Leonard Cheshire centres, developing them from scratch. This has led to other organisations seeking out Howdens’ expertise for larger social housing schemes.
Vodafone National Autistic Society Partnership
‘Better relationships through communication’
This relationship has developed into the UK’s largest three-year corporate partnership, encompassing traditional corporate philanthropy, cause related marketing, sponsorship, employee engagement through fundraising and volunteering, PR, campaigning and awareness raising, knowledge and expertise sharing and leveraging with suppliers.
The partnership has worked well because of setting up a forrmalised process of monthly governance and finance meetings between the programme managers at the charity and Vodafone.
Vodafone aimed to raise £6m for the charity, providing practical national services for people with autism and their families. Overall there have been 250,000 beneficiaries accessing NAS’s national services through Help! Online autism services directory and mobile compatible version Vodafone Live!.
Vodafone donated £3.6m itself and its staff and customers raised an additional £2.4m for the charity. Non-financial results have been seen in increased awareness of autism, the Vodafone-funded launch day for Make Autism Count generated the most ever calls to the NAS helpline, visitors to the website, most donations in one week and generated over £1m worth of PR. The partnership also introduced an outside focus and gave employees a chance to engage with Vodafone through the staff involvement programme which included marathons, treks and fundraising events.
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.