We have no budget.
Yes, you do. You’re just choosing to spend it elsewhere.
Corporates and non-profits use the budget excuse all the time. What they’re really saying is ‘I don’t think it’s important to spend my money in this way’.
For non-profits it’s driven by a scarcity mindset and a fear of donor backlash on their spending. But you can’t shrink to success. New initiatives need investment and the best ROI comes from investing in people. Hiring the right people, at a competitive rate and supporting their learning and development will give you sustainable success into the future.
Corporates understand the need for investment. But investing in a non-profit partnership isn’t a simple calculation; there is emotion involved and the outcomes may be intangible. Corporates have established processes for choosing between competing commercial opportunities, but it can be hard to apply them to non-profit partnerships. The ROI is less easy to measure and there is a temptation to treat partnerships as simply philanthropy. They use the money left over once everything else is sorted.
If you want to get into a corporate’s budget you need to give them something else to care about than the price of the investment. You can only do that when you fully understand what’s motivating them.
As entrepreneur Col Fink says, ‘price doesn’t get raised if you’ve demonstrated value’.
Here are ways to position yourself as a valuable investment, not a discretionary expense.
Understand their top 3 frustrations
Conduct thorough research and discovery meetings to uncover what’s keeping your corporate awake at night. In the current economic environment the issues of staff engagement and retention, slowing consumer spending and soaring cost of operations are all good candidates. Each industry sector is facing its own challenges and you need to get under the skin of your target prospects to unearth them. A good corporate partnership manager is a bit like a barrister, who becomes a temporary expert in each of her client’s businesses. If you can position your non-profit as part of the solution to those top 3 frustrations, you can focus on the value of a partnership, not the cost.
How have they tried to fix the problem?
What have they done to fix those top 3 issues themselves? A large FMCG company once invested in an expensive series of animated cartoons and digital stories to encourage children to use its latest toothpaste brand. The campaign bombed and the corporate wasted a seven figure portion of its marketing budget. Enter a non-profit with a captive audience of families with young children. They had exactly the target market the corporate needed to reach, plus the trust and authenticity that came with their good name. The non-profit could clearly demonstrate the commercial value of its audience and position an investment in the partnership as better value than the failed marketing campaign.
Could they solve the issue by themselves?
Working with Legacy on their Centenary Torch Relay campaign we quickly identified the core motivations of the top corporate partner prospects. One of the defence industry companies was super keen to position themselves favourably with government to win a lucrative new defence contract. But they couldn’t get the attention of the key government officials. Legacy could demonstrate how their centenary campaign provided unique opportunities to be intimate and up close with the key decision makers. It was worth billions if they succeeded in winning a new contract, but it was a solution the company couldn’t achieve by themselves.
The risk of lost opportunity
It’s a tough economic environment right now and competition is fierce. If you’ve identified the right type of corporate prospect, you need to be talking to their main competitors. A children’s charity approached an automotive company and stated up front that they were also talking to the challenger nipping at their heels. They instantly got attention as the company was determined not to be outdone by the competition. The risk of lost opportunity and brand positioning in the marketplace was enough to indicate the commercial value of the partnership.
You’ll notice that value has nothing to do with the cost of your programs or services. Value is in the eye of the beholder- or in this case, your corporate prospect. Position your partnership around the value of the solutions you offer and you’ll multiply your chances of getting a slice of budget. There is always budget- it’s up to you to show why your partnership is the best way of spending it.