Charities sell themselves short in partnering with companies

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 12 Nov 2012

Charities are underestimating the value they bring to companies in corporate partnerships, and are suffering from a case of low self-esteem not shared by the corporate sector.

In the Corporate-NGO Partnerships Barometer to be released on Monday by C&E, which echoes the sentiments in the Corporate Partnerships Survey 2012, just 42 per cent of charities say they feel that corporates view them as effective and professional organisation; however, in fact, nearly three quarters of companies express the belief that charities are just such organisations and that they are able to do business with them.

More companies than charities said they felt that partnerships helped businesses to improve their business practices, and only 8 per cent of charities felt that by working with a company they could boost the company’s understanding of environmental and social issues.

The Barometer also reported a general expectation (across a combined sample of companies and charities) of the next year involving greater investment in charity-corporate partnerships.

But in contrast to Fundraising’s own corporate partnership survey, which exclusively polled charities, the majority of respondents to the C&E survey said that there was increased emphasis on charity-corporate partnerships now rather than in the past. In the 2012 Corporate Partnerships survey, only 32.3 per cent of charities said they felt company interest in charity of the year partnerships was increasing, and more than half felt it had decreased.

Most admired partnership: M&S and Oxfam

For the second year running the partnership between M&S and Oxfam has been nominated as the most admired charity-corporate relationship. The ongoing partnership, featured in a previous profile of M&S’ philanthropy, beat the Unicef and Pampers relationship and Boots and Macmillan partnership, which gained second and third place respectively.

Directory: Macmillan | Marks and Spencer | Oxfam | Unicef

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