Thank you all for attending NILP workshop “Creating effective business charity partnerships” led by Tom James from Three Hands, Nadia Al Yafai from White & Case and Laura Westwick, Bromley by Bow Centre.

We hope that you found the workshop both informative and inspiring.

The discussions on Wednesday last week highlighted some of the challenges people face when developing partnerships. It is a continual learning process for everyone involved.

There are multiple business benefits that can come through effective partnerships, such as:

• Increased employee engagement (recruitment and retention)
• Employee development (leadership development, secondments)
• Co-creation of new products and services
• Improved systems and processes (purchasing / supply chain)
• Building brands
• Licence to operate
• Societal learning (new knowledge/understanding of social issues)
• Increase in sales (through cause related marketing)
• Networking opportunities

However harnessing these benefits is not easy. There are different ways to approach this challenge.

Charities often have to negotiate power struggles in business charity partnerships. Here are six ways for charities to build successful partnerships with the private sector (1):

1. Choose your partner deliberately
2. Negotiate mutually beneficial terms
3. Know your own value
4. Make a concrete promise
5. Plan as partner
6. Leave ideology at the door

And how can businesses ensure they build successful business charity partnerships? Make sure you have (2):

• A clear business agenda
• Goals which are aligned to business objectives
• Offering the potential for employee involvement
• Clearly defined and realistic expectations
• Mutual respect and a willingness to learn
• Commitment to change
• A transparent and honest relationship
• Flexible working relations
• Commitment to ongoing and regular communications
• Investment by both parties
• A long term commitment to sustain and replicate the results
• Rootedness in the user community
• Links to other community organisations

Here are some links to case studies which Tom from Three Hands has put together. We hope that these case studies inspire you with the variety of mutual benefit which can be achieved through effective cross sector partnerships.

1.     M&S / Oxfam – a much-heralded partnership in which M&S have been driving consumer engagement by incentivising customers to give back to Oxfam. Every time people donate used clothing to Oxfam, they receive an M&S voucher. In three years, this has helped Oxfam generate an additional $7 million in revenue. This, in turn, promotes customer loyalty and brings M&S’s recycling commitment to the forefront of consumer action.

2.     Legal & General / Macmillan – Legal & General contracted Macmillan to improve the cancer claim services they provide to customers. For Macmillan this provides an important new revenue stream.

3.     HSBC Climate Partnership – an ambitious, five year partnership involving HSBC, The Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and WWF working across four continents to inspire action by individuals, businesses and governments on climate change. This has spurned out of a ten year partnership between HSBC and Earthwatch. Great example of long term partnership with numerous organisations involved. Big aim of the programme for HSBC is to engage and motivate one third (100,000) of its global workforce to take action, see Guardian article

4.     Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group / Practical Action – great example of co-creation of new products: a smoke hood which aims to reduce the 1.5 million deaths a year which are caused by cooking over open stoves.

5.     Pampers / Unicef – cause related marketing at its best. Wonderfully simple.

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Recommended reading : Jem Bendell, Evolving Partnerships (a guide to working with business for greater social change)

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References:

(1) Linda Scott, DP World Chair Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
(2) Nikolai Rogovsky, “Corporate Community Involvement Programmes: Partnerships for Jobs and Development”