Are You Leaving Corporate Money on the Table?
As fundraising professionals, that is a question that may make many of us cringe, or perhaps jump for joy at the thought that more money can be raised with what we have in place today. At Accelerist, we have heard from many nonprofit professionals for many years how challenging it is to determine the amount of money to ask a corporate partner to invest with your organization. Every day, nonprofit professionals from organizations of all size and sophistication ask us for our intel on the corporate partner ‘ask’. The most common questions:
- Can you help me define the right amount of money to ask a partner for?
- Do you think the lack of corporate partner interest may be because I am asking for too much money?
and last, but definitely not least…
- I have way too many partnerships and too few people on my team to execute. Can you help me figure out how to balance the resources of my small and mighty team?!?
We all know that it’s important to understand what our peers are doing when determining our own organizational strategies. So in partnership with our good friend Joe Waters, we asked you that very question, and we uncovered some very interesting answers. In short, our industry is a mixed bag, and this topic definitely hit a nerve! Take a look at a few leading insights from the results:
- Minimum commitments are on their way to becoming industry standard.
6 out of 10 Corporate Partnerships teams do not require a minimum financial commitment for partnership. However, we find that nearly all of the industry-leading nonprofit organizations with the largest corporate partner portfolios do, and many of you are taking notice and looking to follow suit.
- Organizations are considering holistic value when consider minimum partnerships.
While organizations are across the board in their minimum requirements, with the majority of responses stating under $25k as a minimum, and many over $100k, it is clear that organizations often consider holistic value when setting their requirements. Is the company donating advertising? Social media promotion? Providing in-kind donations? This is important to you, and Accelerist applauds you for this. Just as we recommend measuring the holistic value of your partnerships to account for all value, going beyond the dollar, we encourage nonprofits to use this same approach when quantifying the value partners are bringing to the table.
- Corporate partners are no strangers to minimum commitments—don’t be afraid!
While nearly half of respondents stated they were afraid to require minimum partnership commitments because they did not want to rock the boat, or they were afraid this would scare the partner away, a whopping 65% of you stated that once you DID require the partner to make a minimum commitment, they had no problem with it. Partnerships of EVERY size require significant investment and work from your nonprofit, and aligning with your cause is driving significant value to your corporate partner. Don’t be afraid to set expectations!
At Accelerist, we often work with nonprofits to help them identify their own value. Interested in uncovering your organization’s own value and receiving a data-driven recommendation (benchmarked against your industry peers) on your organization’s minimum financial commitment for the corporate sector? Shoot us a message at info@accelerist.com to hear more about our affordable and turn-key valuation services.
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