By: Ashley Byars
*Below is a brief overview of the report. You can download the full report here.
What keeps cause partnerships healthy and fit for social impact in the current climate? We asked seasoned cause professionals to give us their take on trends and benchmarks for keeping cause partnerships strong. Use the insights in our report, Taking the Pulse of Partnerships, as an industry benchmark for effective partnership sales projections, guaranteed minimum averages, time to secure partnership commitments and common activations and challenges.
2023 Partnership Income Projections
Uncertainty in the marketplace has complicated cause marketing planning this year. Despite a rocky economic outlook at the start of the year, most cause professionals surveyed had a positive outlook on their partnership income for the remainder of 2023.
Q: Based on current projections, does your organization expect your overall cause marketing partnerships income in calendar year 2023 will increase, decrease or remain stable compared to 2022?
- More than half, 58%, of professionals who work in cause-marketing partnerships stated that they are expecting their cause marketing partnership income to increase in the calendar year 2023 compared to 2022.
- 34% said they were not expecting any change at all.
Time to Secure Commitment
One of the most frequent questions we receive from nonprofits interested in tapping into our Partnership Identification and Outreach service is how long it will take to secure new corporate partners. Our latest report shows that cultivating new partnerships takes time. How much time depends on several factors, but the majority of survey participants agreed it takes an average of four to six months to sign a new agreement.
Q: Once your organization has begun a conversation with a new prospect, how many months does it typically take to sign a cause marketing partnership agreement?
- Among all participants, 67% said it can take four to 12 months after the initial conversation to sign an agreement. Of this percentage, most (37%) fell in the four-to-six-month period.
- 20% of all participants said signing an agreement could take more than one year.
Common Activations
Most popular cause marketing partnerships still incorporate a fundraising activation like corporate funding, corporate grant or point-of-sale donation at the register. For the first time, employee engagement has risen to the top three activations this year.
We know from our Next Level Partnerships data that employees are now the No. 1 audience that companies consider when choosing a partner. That means engaging employees in choosing a partner and seeking their feedback on the experience ongoing.
Q: Thinking of your most recently closed cause marketing partnerships, choose up to three campaign activations most frequently used by your organization.
- When asked to choose their most frequently used campaign activations, corporate funding/corporate grants (60%) and point-of-sale donations at the register or digital checkout (57%) ranked the highest.
We hope you’ve found these insights helpful and encourage you to take a deeper dive. For Momentum has brought nonprofits and corporate partners together for maximum impact for more than two decades. We regularly share our data-based best practices and market trends from our original research. Driven by both results and relationships, our goal is to see our clients, community and culture thrive.
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