By: Mollye Rhea
We hope you’ve been enjoying our series of blogs highlighting key research findings from our 2022 report, Next Level Partnerships: A Corporate Perspective. In Part I, we shared insights into what corporations are looking for from nonprofit partners. In Part II, we looked at how corporations make partnership decisions.
In this third and final installment, we zero in on factors that influence the selection of nonprofit partners and what makes the partnerships successful.
Corporations mix and match nonprofits to achieve their giving goals
Key Learning 1: The majority of companies support multiple philanthropic priorities and work with several nonprofit partners on their key issues.
Survey question: Which of the following best describes your company’s overall national/global nonprofit giving strategy?
What this means for your cause partnerships
- Nonprofit organizations: Don’t write off a potential corporate partner just because they already support a nonprofit in your mission space. Consider what programs or populations might differentiate you and craft a pitch accordingly.
- Corporations: Engaging a variety of nonprofits may give you a competitive edge with stakeholders. Poll your employees and customers about their philanthropic interest areas.
These mission segments are receiving the most attention
Key Learning 2: In 2022, the top 5 mission segments supported by companies are education, JEDI, hunger, youth development and environment/climate change.
Survey question: What level of focus has your company been putting on these causes recently?
Companies with a history of supporting JEDI, environment/climate and hunger causes are putting even more focus on them. Other mission categories in the top areas of focus include military/veteran, children’s hospitals/health, health and housing.
What this means for your cause partnerships
- Nonprofits: Demonstrate an authentic connection to generating impact in the areas of focus.
- Corporations: Partnerships need to creatively and meaningfully generate and demonstrate impact in crowded mission areas.
Challenges that must be overcome
Key Learning 3: Resources and capacity are the biggest hurdles for companies when activating a nonprofit partnership.
Survey question: What is the primary challenge that you face when activating a nonprofit partnership?
While time and budget are often noted as challenges, less than 20% of respondents identified them as a major challenge for partnership activation.
What this means for your cause partnerships
- Nonprofits: Realize that companies’ CSR departments are often just as under-resourced as nonprofits. Providing turnkey content and ways to plug in can be a huge relief to your corporate partner.
- Corporations: You can benefit from collaborating with nonprofit partners to help support campaign execution. Our study found that over 50% of companies agree that nonprofit partners are heavily involved in campaign planning and execution.
And that’s not all…get more insights from our full report.
Let’s connect on any questions.
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