The Miss World beauty pageant is in its 72nd year despite being a relic of a past era where women were objectified and judged for their physical beauty. The event has been on a humanitarian charm offensive in recent years, with a new focus on ‘holistic beauty and talent, not just bra size. The contestants compete for prize money and short-term fame, with some using it as a springboard for future careers.
The combination of awkward anachronism laced with desperate optimism perfectly describes the experience of nonprofits with charity of the year (COTY) partnerships. They dominate the landscape in the UK but have been creeping into the Australian marketplace too. Are they inauthentic PR puffery or the stepping stone to a bigger opportunity?
Let’s weigh up the pros and cons.
The parade of contestants
In Miss World, every contestant is expected to walk out in a sparkly dress, smiling and looking eager to please. From a distance, they all look broadly the same under a ton of make-up.
On the positive side, a submission for COTY makes your nonprofit sharpen its story and showcase your best assets. You normally have an application process that requires a short and succinct articulation of your mission, funding needs and impact. Brevity does focus the mind on what’s important.
You also get increased visibility and the chance to be on a bigger stage with audiences you can’t reach by yourself. That might be an opportunity for a smaller charity or a cause that’s underserved. It makes your marketing budget go further.
On the negative side, the parade often rewards the richer, bigger names that can afford designer dresses and weekly Botox. The corporate may often judge applications on surface-level impressions, not true strategic alignment. If the application process is a 600-word statement, they’re making a superficial judgement; it can favour the big brand names and disadvantage the smaller nonprofits unless they can stand out dramatically with a cause that’s a hot topic.
In the parade of contestants, where there are hundreds of interested and hopeful applicants, it’s less focused on who you are and more about how well you sparkle under the stage lights. In Partnerships Reimagined, we talk a lot about this trap, mistaking visibility for value. A partnership built on sparkle alone rarely lasts. The organisations that win long-term, high-value corporate relationships are the ones that know how to articulate their deeper alignment, not just their highlight reel.
The talent round
This can be less about talent, more like the Hunger Games. Miss World contestants perform a 3-minute routine that is supposed to showcase who they ‘really’ are. From singing opera, Bollywood dancing, to performing karate, the contestants are essentially performing tricks for the judges.
What is your prospective corporate asking you to do? It could include providing in-store activations to motivate their staff, promoting the corporate’s products to your database, or designing campaigns that are beyond your core mission.
COTY applications can be the chance to show creativity and flair, innovate or stretch a little. It also builds your organisational ability in storytelling. The application process can also force your nonprofit to be specific about funding needs and your strategic priorities.
However, there is a big risk that you burn resources doing activities that aren’t core, providing short term sugar hits of PR rather than providing strategic value. We saw one egregious example in the UK where eBay offered small community grants of £500. To even get on the shortlist organisations had to promote the platform to their audiences to get signups and subscriptions to eBay first.
Where corporates put the ultimate choice to a staff or customer vote, you can spend hours of effort on promotion with little idea of whether it’s going to land. Take a hard look at whether a COTY partnership is going to give you enough runway to build a relationship for the future or if it’s just a short-term sugar hit for the corporate.
The crowning ceremony
There is only one winner who takes home the crown. The rest invested weeks or months of preparation, resources and emotional energy and end up with nothing.
It’s the same with charity of the year. Dozens of nonprofits spend hours on applications; you often don’t know the odds of success, but you’re still expected to show enthusiasm. Corporates can award the prize based on internal politics, not merit. In fact, the selection criteria is often deliberately opaque, to allow for corporate decision-maker preferences.
The opportunity cost is high for the 99% who don’t win, and there is a low probability of success. Partnership people often get internal pressure to apply for COTY even if it’s not a good strategic fit. Nonprofit leaders are often seduced by the headline offer and the chance to align with a big brand.
If managed well, the potential brand uplift, audience reach, and staff engagement can be very valuable. In some cases, it can be the start to multi-year partnerships, but you’ll need to use those 12 months very strategically to get the full value. For the unsuccessful applicants, the Miss Congeniality consolation prize of “we’ll keep you in mind for next year” rarely eventuates.
Charity of the year partnerships are an old-fashioned beauty contest. They’re not really interested in your personality or your intellect, only how much you can sparkle for the next 12 months. Treat with caution and guard your time, effort and emotional energy for those opportunities that will be a stepping stone to meaningful, multi-year relationships.
Unless you’re crowned, you’re just another contestant who spent a fortune on a dress.