Corporate social engagement

Fundraisers are becoming increasingly professional and sophisticated when it comes to forming partnerships with commercial organisations and also when raising money from them. Corporate donors now are expressing growing interest in what fundraisers have to offer in terms of mutual benefit for their marketing objectives and as they seek to fulfil their obligations in terms of their corporate social responsibility. Is corporate fundraising all it’s cracked up to be? Are companies the best route to the many thousands of potential individual donors that they employ? If so, how should you go about fundraising from the corporate sector and where are the best opportunities?

DEBRA’s epidermolysis bullosa (EB) Ireland awareness day 2014

by Craig Linton

Click here to see how DEBRA Ireland made their logo work hard for them. By telling a powerful story as well and investing a small budget they raised a lot of money, gained new supporters and raised awareness of their cause.

Read more

United Way for Southeast Michigan (UWSEM): lessons from a $27.1 million corporate gift

by Marie Burnett

United Way successfully shifted their fundraising model from transactional to relational and from obligation giving to inspired giving. In the process they turned around a five year trend of decreasing contributions from workforce campaigns with the largest donation to a single project.

Read more

New research shows how charities can create remarkable corporate partnerships

This year Innocent and Age UK are aiming to knit one million hats.

by Remarkable Partnerships

Remarkable Partnerships, a new report from Jonathon Andrews shows that when charities and companies partner in a remarkable way they deliver huge impact, have wider reach, create more opportunities and last longer. Read SOFII’s summary here. Then get the full report, free.

Read more

Oxfam: Marks and Spencer’s ‘schwopping’ partnership

by SOFII

This partnership between Oxfam UK and retailer Marks and Spencer (M&S) fulfilled the needs of people in the UK and developing countries. The planet was a winner too.

Read more

Four tips that can help land corporate donations

Community is very important to both companies and their employees.

by Robert Bellovin

Raising money from commercial organisations is a bit like Marmite – you either love it, or hate it. But you can’t deny it that it does raise money. If you’re thinking about putting a toe in the water – check out this article that is full of advice for practitioners on how to go about it.

Read more

UNICEF UK: ‘own a colour’ appeal

by Jonathan Andrews

This campaign run jointly by UNICEF UK and the paint company Dulux raised £52,000 in the first day. And the company paid all the costs.

Read more

StreetSmart: Helping the homeless as you eat

by SOFII

StreetSmart raises thousands of pounds for homeless charities throughout the UK every year during the months of November and December. The idea is simple: participating restaurants have a card on each table, or a reference on the menu, explaining that a voluntary one pound donation will be added to each table's bill at the end of the meal. StreetSmart then distributes these donations directly to reputable homeless charities throughout the UK.

Read more

Akshaya Patra, India: winners of an international competition to change the world

by SOFII

A prize-winning initiative from India. Akshaya Patra has, quite simply, set up the world's largest school feeding programme, providing more than one million school dinners every school day. This vast undertaking clearly has appeal to corporate donors, for it attracted the attention of American Express when they were running a competition to find projects that have real impact.

Read more

Bank4Hope: a new ‘bank’ to enhance transparency and accountability

screenshot

by SOFII

The founders of Bank4Hope aim to manage and continuously develop this ‘bank’ to support the work of charities in monitoring and fundraising. Their goal is to revolutionise global giving.

Read more

Malaria No More and CollegeHumor: malarious

screengrab

by SOFII

Malaria No More have discovered that laughter is a great entry point to learning – even about something as deadly as malaria.

Read more

Handicap International: the Christmas tree bag

by SOFII

A Christmas product that aims to get into six million homes to help disabled children.

Read more

Who Gives a Crap: the ‘sit down’

by Sue Kershaw

Who Gives a Crap is a new and innovative organisation and SOFII will be watching to see how this initial, creative and funny campaign develops.

Read more