Humans are quick to judge and first impressions matter. They establish a foundational belief that influences future interactions and opinions about someone. My friend invited her first boyfriend to join the family in their big Greek Easter celebration. The boyfriend thought it was just another Aussie BBQ and turned up in Hawaiian shorts and thongs. Everyone else was in their best clothes and he had to face the hostile glare of her Greek Nonna for the whole event.
Corporates who are seeking community partnerships will typically start with investigating your website. You’re making a first impression on them without even knowing it. A halo effect is when a positive first impression leads to other positive assumptions about your cause and your brand. If a corporate doesn’t like what it sees, you may never get to that first meeting or even realise they’re considering you.
What does your website say to corporate partners and how can you make that important first impression?
Be easy to find and work with
I know it’s a struggle to get space on a website. You’re competing with other departments and your website may be set up to sell stuff, like tickets to a performance, or provide vital health information. Just make sure the partnership information is in a logical place, within a dropdown menu. Don’t make your prospective partner hunt through 20 clicks to find it.
Be clear about how they can work with you and what you want them to do. Don’t make them do the work to figure it out. If you want donated goods, access to key audiences, staff participation etc then be explicit.
Don’t obsess about corporate logos. If you’ve got a number of existing corporate partners, you might want to use their logos to decorate the bottom of a page. It provides some comfort to prospective ones that you’ve got runs on the board and can help some of them decide whether they want to be in the company of their biggest competitor. The Australian Ballet does this in a sleek and understated way.
Dial up case studies and testimonials
You want a corporate partner to see themselves in the partnership examples you provide. Nothing builds credibility better than a corporate partner speaking for you. Get some direct quotes and talk about what you’ve achieved together. Importantly, try to include what it’s done for their business, not just your program or services. It will build a corporate’s confidence in your ability to deliver for them. You want a prospective partner to be inspired to say, ‘I want one of those’. Hat tip to Black Dog Institute who invested in some great case studies about their partners.
Case studies and testimonials are much better with images. Even better, video trumps text every time. The Picture Superiority Effect means that your brain retains only 10% of the information if it’s just text or sound. If you have still or moving images, the recall jumps to 65%. Remove large chunks of text and replace them with a case study and video instead.
Check for consistency
Your website and marketing collateral can inadvertently tell mixed message about your organisation or the cause. If your work is focused on young people, show them prominently. Canteen Australia has done a great job with their new website, putting young people front and centre of the story. However, there are plenty of websites that talk about their impact on all Australians, their passion for diversity or their support for indigenous groups and have uniformly white, middle aged, middle class stock images. Nothing says ‘all Australians’ like a team photo without a single non-white face, right? Check for consistency and challenge your own biases, as the corporate is looking for authenticity. We know of partnerships that have been lost, even after lengthy negotiations and lots of interest, when something on the website undermines the brand or the proposition.
Be clear on the why
Non-profits are gold medal winners at describing how they do things. Whether it’s their theory of change, their program methodology or research model, they can write a book about what they do and how it’s done. But before you dive into the detail, consider if you’ve told a corporate WHY they should partner with you. What are the reasons for them to open their wallets immediately?
Does your website articulate clearly your immediate priorities? Does it answer those key questions: where are you going and why now?
Look at the way that Black Dog Institute uses this snippet of research “every dollar spent on effective mental health actions returns $2.30 in benefits to an organisation”. Good use of statistics and third-party evidence is critical to building the reason WHY a corporate needs to take action. Storytelling about your beneficiaries is equally compelling. Rural Aid does a great job in putting farmer stories up front and letting them provide a compelling Why. We explore more ways to frame your ‘Why now’ and create urgency for partners in our book Partnerships Reimagined. It’s packed with real-world examples and strategies for standing out in a crowded market.
First impressions are powerful and hard to shake. Sometimes the smallest changes can make a huge difference in how you’re perceived and whether you’re a credible community partner. Pay attention to the messages you’re subliminally sending to a future corporate partner and you’ll increase your surface area for success.