Stewardship Events for Corporate Fundraising Success

In this blog we share the events strategy that has helped one small charity achieve its best ever partnership fundraising results.

Though many charities use events as fundraising opportunities, it’s far less common to use them regularly for stewardship. In a recent episode of the Fundraising Bright Spots podcast, I was excited to get the chance to talk to Chris Salt from the wonderful charity Candlelighters, which supports families experiencing cancer in Yorkshire.

You can listen to the podcast episode here.

Candlelighters is enjoying its best ever year for partnerships fundraising results. The events strategy we share here has been a key element in achieving these fabulous results.
So if you don’t currently use events for stewardship of high value supporters, but you’d like to understand the advantages and how you might implement a version of it in your charity, then this blog is for you!

How can we (efficiently) add value to relationships with partners?

To grow relationships with partners, most fundraisers are aware that it’s important to find ways to add value to those relationships, and to somehow do it consistently. We know this is valuable, but clearly in most charities time for these activities is really hard to find.

Most charities don’t include an events programme when they draw up a plan for looking after corporate partners.

The typical charity events we think about are often big, impressive events, which happen once a year and are set up specifically to make money. They take a huge amount of time and preparation (both before and after!) meaning it’s not practical to do them more than once a year.

On the podcast, Chris told me about the strategy he learned and implemented since attending our Corporate Partnerships Mastery Programme that’s different to what most charities do.

Simple events with clear objectives

The purpose is to deepen relationships with existing partners and to give new potential partners a chance to find out more. There’s an opportunity to hear about the amazing difference their support is making, for partners to meet each other, and an opportunity to have fun.

The recipe

Here are some things that Chris shared about their approach:

• They run the events three times per year. They don’t have the resources to do them more often, but this is often enough to enable people to deepen their relationship with the charity and each other as many people attend regularly.
• They happen early evening, and last about two hours
• The charity works hard to help people connect to the difference their support makes, by inviting colleagues and parents who have benefited to share their stories.
• They include the opportunity to network and for partners to share experiences of working with the charity, so that they get inspired by and help each other.
• Fun is an important value in the Candlelighters culture, and this is reflected during part of each event. In their most recent one there was an energising activity where attendees were set the task in small groups of building the tallest tower using only dry spaghetti and jelly babies! These networking activities help people deepen a sense of connection with other supporters.
• The venue varies, as the event is usually hosted (for free) by a different partner each time.

Increased income

Chris told me it’s not a coincidence that this year the charity has achieved its best ever results for corporate partnerships fundraising. Here are a couple of specific examples of how they lead to more support:

• At the end of their very first event the partner of a law firm told Chris he’d like to change their relationship from a ‘Charity of the Year’, to their permanent ‘Charity of Choice’. The partnership is worth £10,000 per year.
• Another partner that attended told him they couldn’t possibly end their partnership at the end of the Charity of the Year term and extended their partnership for a further two years.
• The charity has found that these events have made it easier for partners to achieve their existing fundraising pledges, because the companies help each other out by offering auction prizes and collaborating on, for example, buying places on golf days etc.

Other positive outcomes

And there are other benefits. Apparently, colleagues and trustees who have taken part in the events have gained a better understanding of the range of ways Candlelighters carries out its mission. This is so valuable for a charity’s culture, but not always easy when there are several teams within a busy charity.

If you’d like another example of a charity creating a series of stewardship events as part of its corporate partnerships strategy, check out this story from Paul Courtney at the Children’s Hospice South West, whose events have primarily been at breakfast time rather than in the evenings.

Like Chris, Paul has found that the key to the success of these events was doing them fairly regularly. This means there is always a date in the relatively near future when someone can connect with other supporters or experience what it’s like to partner the charity.

These conversations highlight that finding a way to consistently add value and deepen relationships with partners, pays off in fundraising terms. Crucially, they work because they happen more than once. Clearly there is a limit to just how often your charity might be able to do something similar. We’ve found that even just two or three times / year is much more effective than one large (exhausting) event that is never repeated.

But because organising any event is time-consuming, the key to delivering a series is making the format and process relatively straightforward.

Would you like to learn about more ways to grow Corporate Partnerships income?

On the Corporate Partnerships Mastery Programme we show you how to implement dozens of effective techniques to find, meet and inspire companies to partner with your charity. You can find out more here.