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How to identify your 5-star prospects

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October 16, 2025

How to identify your 5-star prospects

Written by Jonathan Andrews.

This is a blog about what works. When Learning with Parents identified their 5-star prospects, IG Group was top of their list. Within two years they secured a three-year partnership worth £750k.

When you want to build corporate partnerships, it seems logical that you need a long prospect list. After all, the more prospects the better, right? Wrong! Our experience shows that long prospect lists make corporate fundraisers lose focus, feel overwhelmed and struggle to deliver results.

We recommend you have a short list of target corporate prospects. Approximately 10 per corporate fundraiser is a good number. So how do you decide which corporate prospects go on your list? We recommend you identify your 5-star prospects as described below:

Shared purpose

The first feature of your ideal corporate prospects is shared purpose. This means that when look at the company’s mission and your charity’s mission you can that there is some common ground. IG Group and Learning with Parents have a very strong shared purpose, because they both know that financial literacy helps people fulfil their potential.

Focusing on prospects where you have a shared purpose not only increases your chances of securing them, but it also means you will create more ambitious partnerships. That’s because the partnership is built on your shared WHY. As Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

2. Contact at the company

When I started my career in corporate fundraising 25 years ago, people used to say that corporate fundraising success depends on who you know. And it is still true today. The CEO at Learning with Parents has a contact at IG Group. They met when they were on an interview panel together. This contact meant it was really straight forward to secure the first meeting.

The reason why contacts are so important can be explained by behavioural science. The Law of Liking says that we are much more likely to do business with someone that we like and trust.

3. Problem you can help solve

When you approach a company for a partnership it’s important to understand that they will have one question on their mind, “What’s in it for me?” If you can’t answer this question convincingly then it is highly unlikely that they will want to partner with you.

Learning with Parents has considerable value to offer IG Group because they have a strong shared purpose. This means the charity can help the company engage their employees and raise their profile with target customers, by highlighting their unique and inspirational purpose.

4. Resource to help solve your problems

The fourth feature of your ideal prospect is to make sure that the company has sufficient resources to help solve your problems. IG Group has considerable value to offer Learning with Parents. They are making a long-term financial contribution, raising the charity’s profile and they have valuable clients to whom they could make introductions. In fact, this partnership is game-changing for Learning with Parents.

When you think about a company’s resources it’s vital that you see all the value they have to offer, not just money. This is because companies don’t want to be seen as just bank accounts. They want genuine partnerships built on shared purpose. In fact, some of the most successful corporate-charity partnerships have started with non-financial support.

5. Realistic chance of success

The fifth feature of an ideal corporate prospect is they are realistic. When you think of your ideal partners it is very tempting to write down high profile companies such as HSBC, Microsoft, and Tesco. But the queue of charities wanting to partner with these companies is very long. So, we recommend you take a different approach and look for companies that are less well known. They can be harder to find, but you could be the only charity who is approaching them.

IG Group was a realistic prospect for Learning with Parents for three reasons: they had a contact; a strong shared purpose, and the company isn’t a household name.

We hope this blog inspires you to find your own 5-star prospects. It’s a great way to strengthen and refresh your new business pipeline. It will help you build more ambitious corporate partnerships. And it works!

If you want to have a conversation about how we can help you find your 5-star prospects, then you can book a 30-minute call with Jonathan using this link: https://meetings.hubspot.com/jonathan612/30-minute-virtual-coffee-on-zoom

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The Four Ways Charities Create Value For Businesses

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Charities help companies achieve the following goals:

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Employee Engagement and Retention

Corporate partnerships provide employees with opportunities to support causes that matter, strengthening morale and workplace culture.

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Competitive Differentiation

Working with charities helps businesses stand out and demonstrate purpose in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

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Sales Opportunities

Purpose-driven partnerships can strengthen customer relationships and attract new customers.

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Brand Trust and Credibility

Authentic partnerships help companies build stronger, more trusted brands.

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Right now, all four of these areas are top priorities for companies.

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Why Understanding Partnership Value Matters

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When charities understand how to measure and communicate their partnership value, something powerful happens.

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They gain the confidence to pitch bigger opportunities, create stronger proposals and negotiate partnerships based on the real value rather than guesswork.

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This shift allows charities to move beyond undervalued collaborations and instead build high-impact corporate partnerships that benefit both sides.

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Learn How To Calculate Your Partnership Value

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To help charities develop this confidence, Remarkable Partnerships have created a new service: Unlock Corporate Partnerships Value Workshop.

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This practical session is designed to help charities understand the value they can offer companies and apply a simple framework to calculate it.

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During the workshop, you will learn:

About the four types of partnership value.
Explore why understanding value helps secure higher-value corporate partnerships.
See examples from successful corporate charity partnerships.
Work through an interactive exercise calculating the value of a current partner or prospect.

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The session lasts 2 hours and 30 minutes and provides a practical method charities can continue using when developing future partnerships.

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If you’d like to learn more about the workshop, contact: jonathan@remarkablepartnerships.com

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Many charities undervalue their corporate partnerships, limiting both impact and opportunity. This article explores why, the real value charities bring to businesses, and how understanding it can unlock stronger partnerships, with a workshop for those looking to take it further.

Learn More

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Build Partnerships That Smash Targets

We know that charities can build major corporate partnerships, even in these tough economic times. That’s why we held a webinar where three special guest speakers shared recommendations to build corporate partnerships that smash targets.

Their recommendations and insightful stories are described below.

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Stop Asking and Start Giving

Matt Turner MBE from Creative Pod recommends that charities stop asking and start giving. He said the best corporate partnerships are where every single person around the table wins. It’s about doing things differently, standing out a little bit and pushing the boundaries.

He shared a story about a hospice who provide free grief counselling to anyone in their local community. Matt worked with them to create a corporate product of grief counselling for companies to offer their employees. It’s £3.50 per employee, per month, and anytime your employee has a bereavement they are fast tracked to the front of the queue and receive 12 free sessions of grief counselling.

Another suggestion from Matt is if you have a corporate ball and you have two tables that you just cannot shift, stop wasting your time trying to sell them and give them away to two banks instead. You tell the banks to bring their richest friends and customers for a night out. Then you know you have two tables with some extremely wealthy people with whom you can build long-term partnerships.

Both examples demonstrate that when you stop asking and start giving it helps you build long-term corporate partnerships.

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Lead with insight, not instinct

Nina Saffuri from Raise Impact recommends you lead with insight, not instinct. She shared the following inspiring story which demonstrates her point.

When she was at War Child they got through to the final four of a major charity of the year, but they came second in the staff vote. They were really disappointed, because this wasn’t the first time they hadn’t won a staff vote. Nina asked her Head of Corporate Partnerships to look at the last two years and analyse how much time they had spent on losing, especially on charity of the year. They came back and said they were wasting one third of their time on losing.

Nina suggested they do a test and don’t apply for any charity of the year opportunities for one year. She encouraged her corporate partnerships team to be bold instead and turn their attention to something they were more likely to win. She asked them to find an industry that wasn’t so competitive and where there weren’t any staff votes. They came back and suggested the gaming industry. Nina and here colleagues weren’t gaming experts, so they spoke to a couple of their donors in the gaming industry. They asked them to share about the industry and make some introductions. They also recruited someone from the gaming industry.

They started with a “Games Jam” where they asked gaming companies to create games for War Child which they sold on a gaming platform. This activity only raised £10,000. However, during that week they engaged and built relationships with some of the major gaming companies in the UK. Now that industry raises £700k-£1million unrestricted income for War Child ever year.

The key message from Nina is find your valuable insight. Spend time understanding where you’re losing and see if you can build more partnerships with industries. In other words, lead with insight not instinct, because it transforms your focus, your partnerships and your results.

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Find the company’s pain

Peter Chiswick from Remarkable Partnerships shared the good news that this is a time of opportunity for charities to build major corporate partnerships, but only if they take the time to find a company’s pain and show how their partnership can solve it.

Peter demonstrated his recommendation by sharing an example from his corporate career where he worked for a company who provided data on patent software. One of their clients was a major engineering company.

Peter’s company were just one of 3,000 suppliers and they had a small relationship worth £2,000 a year. He secured a meeting with their Heads of Innovation and he knew this was his opportunity. Before the meeting he asked his internal colleagues to build a list of the latest releases of technology in the sector where the engineering company operated, and put it on one piece of paper.

When Peter went to the meeting the company spent the first 20 minutes telling him how everything was fantastic and they were ahead of the curve. Peter said you might want to have a look at this, and he dropped the piece of paper on the table. It showed they were six months late to market, whereas they thought they were miles ahead.

In that moment Peter and his company moved from one of many suppliers to a company adding massive value. He was helping solve their pain. More senior people came into the room to see the piece of paper, and that was the start of a very large contract with the engineering company.

You can apply the insight from this story to corporate-charity partnerships. Before you approach a company, take time to think what could be their commercial pain. Then when you meet with them you can describe how a partnership with your company will help solve that pain.

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Conclusion

These three experts show that successful corporate partnerships aren’t built on hope. They’re built on smart strategy, bold thinking and a genuine commitment to creating value for everyone involved. Whether it’s giving rather than asking, using insight to focus your time, or uncovering a company’s commercial pain, each approach helps charities stand out and build stronger, longer-lasting relationships. By putting these recommendations into practice, your charity can not only survive in this challenging climate but build partnerships that truly smash targets.

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