Corporate partnerships are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with organisations seeking to further their business objectives, as well as social ones. Graham Precey and Kim van Niekerk look at how charities can use intellectual property to foster relationships. 

What's your favourite sort of corporate partnership? Charity of the Year? A one-off cheque that you can spend at will? Or do you prefer to work in a way that is more strategic and which enables you to maximise the value you receive from the relationship? If you pick the latter, how successful are you in achieving that value?

As we highlighted during our presentation at the Resource Alliance's International Fundraising Congress 2013, all too often the approaches charities make to corporates are ill-thought through and ineffective. Our experiences have shown how not enough time is spent getting to know and understand the business and its objectives. Or the pitch is too self-centred, focusing purely on the benefits for the charity rather than the potential partner. As a result the sector is missing out on a vast amount of income and the opportunity to achieve their charitable goals.

We have identified an evolution within company CSR departments. They are starting to think much more dynamically about the relationships they want to develop with charities. This is not so much about philanthropy; it's about furthering their business objectives. Charities that can help them achieve these objectives will be the ones that win the partnerships.

Selling intellectual property is one way to do this. By this we don't mean selling access to your database. We mean identifying what it is your organisation knows and does really well, and turning that into a product that others are willing to pay for. Some examples of this include selling research that can be used to enhance employees' understanding of an issue; experience of working with a particular demographic such as the young, old or disabled, or specific skills that could be shared.

To provide a real-life example from Legal & General: we paid the RNLI to deliver flood rescue training for our insurance teams that take calls from people whose homes have flooded. The training really brought alive for the teams how these people are feeling and the trauma they have just gone through, which in turn introduces more empathy into the business and makes our teams more effective.

To reformat intellectual property into a product that can be sold it requires a shift in the mindset of a charity – not just in the fundraising team but across the whole organisation. It also involves a lot of work, but get it right and the rewards will be plenty.