Million Dollar Partnerships
Build a corporate partnership strategy that grows your income, awareness and impact.
A successful corporate partnership strategy can transform more than just your revenue. The right partners can help your organisation become better known, take your cause to new audiences and generate sustainable revenue through the company, its employees and customers. As your reach and recognition grow, so does your ability to raise funds across all revenue streams, not just corporate income.
That future doesn’t happen because you have a good cause.
Your team needs to know where to focus, what to say, how much to ask for and how to move an opportunity forward. Your leaders need to understand the strategy and support the decisions. Your partnership materials need to clearly communicate the value you bring to a business.
Million Dollar Partnerships gives you the corporate partnership strategy, tools and capability to build that program.
Strong corporate partnerships are built and won long before the pitch.
Whether you are building a corporate partnership strategy for the first time, trying to improve disappointing results or ready to pursue much bigger opportunities, it is tempting to focus on the visible activity: prospecting, proposals and pitches.
But those things only work when the right foundations sit underneath them.
Do you understand what your organisation has that is genuinely valuable to a business, what that value is worth, which companies have the strongest reason to partner with you and how to turn that alignment into a compelling opportunity?
Million Dollar Partnerships identifies what needs to be built, fixed or strengthened to achieve your ambitions. That may be your strategy, assets and value, pricing, internal alignment, prospect selection, market positioning or team capability.
What does your partnership program need to grow?
We examine six foundations to understand where the real constraint sits and what will make the greatest difference.
Corporate Partnership Strategy & Readiness
Clarify what you want corporate partnerships to achieve, how they support your organisation's broader ambitions and whether the internal foundations are in place to succeed.
May include partnership ambition, organisational readiness, stakeholder alignment, partnership strategy and implementation priorities.
Partnership Value & Pricing
Identify what your organisation has that is valuable to corporate partners, understand what that value is worth and build the confidence to ask for more.
May include asset identification and benchmarking, commercial value proposition, partnership pricing and valuation.
Partnership Alignment & Risk
Create a clear and consistent way to assess which corporate opportunities offer genuine strategic value, which partners are suitable and where potential risk sits.
May include partnership suitability criteria, risk and opportunity frameworks, Synergy and Vested Interest analysis, governance and decision-making.
Prospect Strategy & Partner Prioritisation
Identify the industries and companies with the strongest reason to partner with you, so your team can focus its time and resources on the best opportunities.
May include industry mapping, ideal partner profiling, prospect research, a longlist, prioritised shortlist and partnership plan.
Partnership Positioning & Credentials
Translate your organisation's impact, assets and ambitions into a commercially compelling story that gives corporate decision-makers a reason to choose you.
May include partnership narrative and value proposition, corporate credentials, partnership offers, proposal architecture and market-facing materials.
Partnership Capability & Execution
Give your team the skills, tools and confidence to open conversations, uncover opportunities, structure partnerships and move prospects towards a decision.
May include support for prospecting, outreach, discovery, partnership structuring, value conversations, proposals, negotiation and support with live opportunities.
Some organisations need all six foundations. Others need only one or two strengthened. We identify where the real constraint sits and focus the engagement on the work that will make the greatest difference.
Want to explore the thinking behind the framework?
Read our practical insights on corporate partnership strategy on the Million Dollar Partnerships blog.
How we helped Legacy secure more than $5 million within 12 months
Million Dollar Partnerships case study · Legacy Australia
Legacy Australia provides essential support to the families of veterans, ensuring no one suffers as a result of their loved one’s service to our country.
As Legacy approached its centenary in 2023, it faced a significant challenge. The Legacy name had become less well known, other causes had become more prominent and new organisations were supporting veterans in different ways.
Legacy created the Centenary Torch Relay to reinvigorate its brand, inspire the community and position the organisation for its next 100 years. But it was starting from scratch, with no corporate partners for the Torch Relay.
Legacy followed the Million Dollar Partnerships process, developing a clear understanding of what it needed, the value it could offer and the companies with the strongest reason to partner. This allowed the team to focus its limited time on the best-fit corporate prospects. It approached companies with greater ambition and confidence, avoiding the gold, silver and bronze sponsorship model it had relied on in the past.
Within 12 months, Legacy secured Defence Health, BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin as major partners, generating more than $5 million in corporate support. By 18 months, that figure had grown to $7.6 million in cash and in-kind contributions.
Most importantly, the Centenary Torch Relay and its corporate partnerships helped bring together 44 Legacy clubs across Australia. It inspired greater collaboration, renewed pride in the organisation and created a platform for Legacy’s next 100 years.
Why Stellar Partnerships?
Partnership specialists, not general fundraising consultants
Corporate partnerships are not simply fundraising with a business logo attached. They require a different strategy, value proposition, decision process and set of commercial skills.
Stellar Partnerships helps nonprofits develop and implement a corporate partnership strategy built on strong commercial foundations.
We bring
- Deep experience in building nonprofit–corporate partnerships
- A proven methodology developed through work with hundreds of nonprofits
- Practical frameworks tested across new, stalled, and established partnership programs
- Insights, trends and best practice examples from across the sector
- A commercial perspective grounded in mutual value, not transactional sponsorship
- Facilitation that brings leaders, fundraising, programs, marketing and other stakeholders into the process
- Capability building that enables your team to continue the work
We are the co-authors of Partnerships Reimagined and trusted advisers to nonprofits across Australia and New Zealand.
Trusted by Australia's leading non-profits
What our clients say
★★★★★
Partnering with Stellar Partnerships has been one of the most valuable strategic decisions Soldier On has made in recent years. From the very first engagement, Linda and Sharon brought clarity, confidence and a thoughtful rigour to our income generation framework. Their deep expertise, genuine collaboration and ability to translate insight into action have helped us to diversify and strengthen our funding approach in ways that are both sustainable and mission aligned.Stellar has supported us not only to broaden our revenue base – but to better articulate our impact, refine our value proposition, and elevate how we engage with supporters and partners. Their guidance has been practical, empowering and consistently delivered with integrity. They understood the challenges we have faced and have provided clear, tangible solutions.
We are genuinely grateful for their partnership and the tangible difference it is making in advancing Soldier On’s ability to support veterans and their families.
Paul Singer, Ceo
★★★★★
You’ve exceeded my expectations. We needed to be very strategic in our planning and Stellar Partnerships have helped us do that. You’ve helped develop our thinking, build the collateral and tools and refine the approach to make this successful. We now have a solid foundation to build on our strengths. Linda and Sharon have been fantastic- very approachable and always available. You deeply understand our mission, the complexities and conflicts. You’ve enabled us to articulate the unique space of the PHN, raise funds to scale our work and define the language and narrative that makes sense for us. You’re not on the sidelines; you’re in the team, on the field with us. I highly recommend Stellar Partnerships to anyone building new partnerships. Gabby Clezy, Executive Manager, Partnerships and Engagement
★★★★★
We expected to simply create a list of potential matches and go out cultivating. I’ve been surprised how this process has highlighted the internal knots we need to undo. We need to stop looking at it as silos and show how a partnership benefits the whole of the organization, not just one campaign. It’s highlighted some of those key gaps that we really need to be addressing. It was a great way for us to get buy in and active participation from the rest of the team when we haven’t really had a big corporate partnerships presence at the organization for quite a few years. Bringing other people in from the division on those sessions was fantastic. We are in a much better position to advocate across the organization and across the division. I feel quite empowered in doing that now, armed with the right information. Emma Fitzsimons, Corporate Partnership LeadFrequently Asked Questions
Not always. Some organisations need the complete process, while others already have strong foundations and need help with one or two specific areas. We identify what is currently limiting your partnership growth and recommend only the work that will make the greatest difference.
Yes. We can help you assess the opportunity, clarify your strategy, identify and value what you can offer corporate partners, find the right prospects, develop your market positioning and prepare your team to go to market.
Yes. We work with established programs that have stalled, become too transactional, rely heavily on a small number of partners or are not producing the income and strategic value expected. We identify what is holding the program back and focus on fixing that constraint.
No. It is designed for nonprofits with serious corporate partnership ambitions and the organisational commitment to build a strategic program. The right scope depends on your opportunity, readiness, resources and ambitions, not simply the current size of your organisation.
No credible consultant can guarantee that a particular company will invest or predict exactly when a partnership will close. Million Dollar Partnerships builds the strategy, proposition, tools and capability required to pursue larger, longer-term corporate partnerships with much greater focus and confidence. It’s a methodology that will sustain you long into the future.
No. Our primary role is to build your strategy, partnership proposition, tools and internal capability. We help you identify and prioritise the right prospects and can support outreach and live opportunities where agreed. We do not sell generic corporate contact lists, promise introductions or conduct prospecting for you. Partnerships are about relationships and we believe they should be owned by you, not us.
It depends on the areas of work required, the complexity of your organisation and the availability of internal stakeholders. Some organisations engage us for one focused strategic project, while others complete several stages over a longer period. We agree on a clear scope and timeframe before the work begins.
We’ll discuss your current partnership program, your ambitions and what may be preventing growth. We’ll then determine whether Million Dollar Partnerships is the right fit and which areas of the process are likely to make the greatest difference.
Engagements start from $10,000 plus GST. The investment depends on what needs to be built, fixed or strengthened, the complexity of your organisation and the level of support required. After an initial conversation, we will recommend the areas most likely to make a difference and provide a clear scope, timeframe and investment.
What could stronger corporate partnerships make possible for your organisation?
Whether you are starting from scratch, fixing disappointing results or ready to pursue much bigger opportunities, we’ll help you identify what needs to be built, fixed or strengthened.
Book a free consultation with Sharon or Linda to discuss your ambitions, what may be holding you back and whether Million Dollar Partnerships is the right next step.