In the previous blog, I examined the first of the four purses (the HR purse) that non-profits & social enterprises can tap into when approaching corporates for resources & cash.

As a reminder, the 4 purses are: 1) HR, 2) Philanthropy, 3) CSR, and 4) Marketing.

Let’s dive into the Philanthropy purse today.

The Philanthropy purse is the most well-known to changemakers, who live and breathe philanthropy. Predominantly focused upon societal impact, this purse is likely to use jargon that you’re familiar with, such as grants, gifts and donations. Throughout my experience advising the Vodafone Foundation, Mondelez Foundation and AMP Foundation, I’ve witnessed a big shift towards corporate foundations funding a handful of strategic, business-aligned causes that deliver a tangible impact, instead of providing small grants to multiple charities.

Whilst this purse at first glance may be large, what’s important is how they slice up the pie.

The main motivation...

In my previous blog, I revealed the four distinct purses that non-profits & social enterprises can tap into when approaching corporates for resources & cash (yes, I put cash second, more on that later).

As a reminder, the 4 purses are: 1) HR (Human Resources), 2) Philanthropy, 3) CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), and 4) Marketing.

Let’s start by diving into the HR purse.

Of the four purses, this one holds the smallest budget for your organisation, and yet it can be time-consuming, meeting the needs of a corporate that’s hungry for meaningful, purpose driven engagement opportunities.  As the Great Resignation is being felt across the world and Australia, companies are doing all that they can to retain and attract talent. So hopefully the financial aspect of this budget may indeed grow.

Whilst not financially lucrative, this purse is great if you have knotty problems that only innovative thinking and specialist expertise can solve. Or you have big events...

In over two decades of matchmaking companies with causes, I’ve witnessed a consistent error that non-profits make which prevents them from even securing a meeting with a prospective corporate partner. Here’s the problem: they view a corporate (that includes a company or brand) as a ‘donor’ with just one purse (budget), when in fact, there’s four purses. Additionally, non-profits often see that purse as holding just money, when there’s usually many more valuable resources that you can access. These include promotion to millions of customers (promoting your brand and also, where relevant, behaviour-changing messaging), campaigning, product (GIK), specialist skills and services, contacts and creative agencies - all of which could be potentially transformative for your non-profit. 

Just like the government has numerous departments and therefore many budgets, or an individual might donate from different purses (their will, salary, or...

To say the pandemic changed many things is an understatement. The way we work, socialise, the way we shop, and for many things, there’s no going back to ‘normal’. 

Given that going out to shop was a risk to our health (especially if buying toilet rolls!) have you changed the way you purchase products?  Even a former staunch anti-online purchaser like Hailey has embraced the e-commerce world and found it to be, for the most part, an efficient and reliable way to shop.

Whether shopping F2F or online it’s good to have a credit card that gives back every time you purchase. It eases the guilt of consumerism a little doesn’t it?

A brilliant example of an Australian credit card that does just that, is the Pink card from ME Bank. The pink everyday transaction account card contributes 1c to the cause of breast cancer research, every time it’s used.

The campaign theme is ‘Buck it Forward’ where cardholders are invited to turn every...

“I don’t want more untied money” said no-one working within a non-profit, ever.

Untied money into a non-profit is gold, is it not? You can spend it on whatever is a priority, and often it’s the ‘not very sexy’ things like staff training & salaries, rent, IT improvements, infrastructure etc. So why then do so many non-profits go chasing after TIED MONEY!?

A philanthropic grant – whether from government or a company foundation - is tied money.  It’s tied to the program or service that you request the money for. And generally, the reporting requires very detailed accounts of how every dollar has been spent and the impact of the investment – what difference has it made? All very time-consuming. And if all the money from the grant goes to the program or service, who’s paying you to manage the relationship and write that detailed report? Aha! Unless the grant has an allowance for that, then you must dip into another pot...

In late 2021 Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) forged a brilliant partnership with the Bupa Foundation called ‘Healthy Planet, Healthy People’.

Bupa is a healthcare company committed to helping people live longer, healthier & happier lives and making a better world. Conservation Volunteers empowers communities across Australia to take action for a thriving future for humans and nature. This shared commitment to people and planet is at the heart of the partnership. After all, the health of the planet and the health of humans is intrinsically interwoven.

The partnership is a significant next step in Conservation Volunteer’s ambitious 5-year agenda to build and activate a nationwide community of 1 million Nature Stewards focused on protecting our natural environment against climate change and biodiversity loss and their impacts.

At the launch of the partnership, Bupa Asia Pacific CEO, Hisham El-Ansary, said: “As millions of Australians emerge from...

A standout partnership that emerged during the pandemic was Reckitt’s alliance with the quiet achiever - Meals on Wheels Australia. It was topical, beautifully executed and a perfect alignment of goals. 

Meals on Wheels delivers more than 14.8 million meals to elderly Australians a year. The onset of COVID-19 created an even more testing time for an already vulnerable elderly population, and while the country went into lockdown, demand for the Meals on Wheels services increased.

Reckitt and Meals on Wheels were both aware of the immense challenges the pandemic posed to the elderly and wanted to focus efforts on protecting those at greater risk. With a shared common purpose to support the wellbeing and protection of vulnerable Australians, Reckitt provided crucial hygiene products to ensure that the Aussies who needed it most could have a hygienic home during the early months of the pandemic. This meant that over $1m worth of disinfectant products (Glen 20, Pine O Cleen...

You’ve heard it before: “the quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask”.  The non-profit sector is amidst an exciting evolution (in part due to the pandemic) causing changemakers to ask questions – many of them challenging.

When we ask the right – or better – questions, we increase the chances of getting a better answer, and outcome.  The quality of questions being asked within your organisation right now, could be the difference between it thriving, or not.

What IS a good quality question you may ask!  Let’s look at a few, in relation to corporate partnerships. The simple, Who, What, Why, When, How is a good starting point.

Q “WHY do we want corporate partnerships?” 

A fundamental question that’s often missed.  My last blog dives into this, where you can also download a guided exercise & Template to help you answer this question. It’s critical that a...

There’s just three little letters that make up a big and important word: WHY.

I became intimately acquainted with the word WHY during the early 1990s.  In the midst of a messy relationship break-up, I’d sing the Annie Lennox song ‘Why’ through tears day and night. If you don’t know the song check it out, it’s a stunner.

Over a decade later, Simon Sinek released his book ‘Start with WHY’, and turned the word WHY on its head. Suddenly the word wasn’t just at the start of the question; it WAS the question. What’s your WHY? Simon’s premise is simple: there are thousands of successful companies and leaders, but only a few ever change the world, so what makes them different from the rest?  

Simon’s book stated that people don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it.  In other words, an organisations’ core purpose. He asserts that those successful companies start with WHY, and then...

One of the things I’m most passionate about is helping changemakers prepare for success.  For many entrepreneurial non-profits, the idea of preparation and planning is just plain boring, they want to get out there and get results RIGHT NOW.  The reality is, it simply doesn’t happen that way.  As Steve Jobs once said, "if you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time”.

Jerry Seinfeld, American comedian, was hailed an ‘overnight sensation’. Love him or hate him, he’s one of the most successful self-made multi-millionaires of all time, with an estimated wealth of $950m[1]. 

Dig a little deeper and you’ll discover that the key to his success? Many years of incredible hard work and dedication to his craft. Jerry’s mum was of Syrian descent, his father Hungarian and he grew up in a humble Jewish household. He became involved in various school productions and tried out open mic nights around New York,...