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New Partnership Possibilities

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October 16, 2025

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seencharities of all types and sizes create new partnerships and grow existing ones– often in record time. We keep coming back to these examples as a source ofinspiration and thought we’d share a few of them to keep your mind on what’spossible in the weeks ahead.

ChangingFaces’ exciting new partner:

ChangingFaces knows that for people with a visible difference, lockdown could have a significantimpact. In particular, people with a visible difference have spent timebuilding up their confidence to be a part of society, but now this isolationcould set them back, so that when lockdown lifts, they fear re-enteringthe world again.

They took tonew business approaches with vigour. With one of their prospects – a leadingmake-up brand – they were able to go from a cold approach to an agreed partnershipin a matter of one email, two meetings and eight days. The partnership willinclude a cause-related marketing promotion and some really inspiring digitalmedia activity.

The teamreflected on the importance of approaching companies based on shared purpose(in this case, empowering people to feel confident about their appearance), andhow the compelling narrative of what coronavirus means for their beneficiariesenabled them to mobilise faster than ever before.

LandAid’s£700,000+ corporate campaign:

LandAidunites businesses across the property, real estate and construction industriesto build accommodation for young people facing homelessness. With somepredicting that these sectors will be the hardest hitby coronavirus, it’sall too easy to see why their corporate partnerships team may have held offfrom speaking to partners about continuing their support.

What their team did instead was get in touch with their sense of what was possible and pivot from capital campaigns to providing emergency support. With individual communication with each partner, including Savills, Landsec and Grosvenor Estate, they have been able to secure around £700,000 of support in just three weeks.

They said ifthere was anything they’d learned from their success so far, it was to neverunderestimate your partners’ capacity for generosity whilst being sensitive oftheir struggles. There are no easy wins in corporate partnerships at the bestof times, but if your partners are loyal, believe in your work, and your team,they may surprise you, even now.

RichardHouse’s problem-solving partnership:

Thischildren’s hospice was able to secure a partnership with a major UK companybased on a national, digital, pro-bono project. They approached the company withthe shared purpose of keeping families and nurses active and were able tomobilise content along the theme of that purpose in just four days.

By joining the company’s employees with the hospice’s Family Services Team , they are sharing content suited for seriously ill children, as well as their siblings and carers.. This will be of huge value now, but the team are also excited that this partnership could last a long time and go a long way to delivering the charity’s purpose in the years to come.

BirminghamChildren’s Hospital’s #NHSSweatySelfie:

Based on an inspiration of their frontline staff averaging 20,000 steps a day, Birmingham Children’s Hospital teamed up with training apparel brand GymShark for a consumer engagement campaign. Doing their bit to keep fit, for every person sharing a post-exercise photo with the hashtag #NHSSweatySelfie, GymShark pledged a £5 donation up to the value of £175,000.

This campaign, live until the 30^th of April serves to meet both the charity and the company’s purpose. By keeping fit, you are preventing illness, and they’re giving individuals an opportunity to align themselves with the values of both the company and the NHS frontline. This proves GymShark’s relevance and purpose even in uncertain times, creating that win-win partnership we are all looking for.

Thekey learning that we take from this partnership, is that when a company and acharity have a really strong fit, then the scale of the partnership is enormous.We also love that it demonstrates the power of a brilliant partnership idea.

All four teams listed above have doneincredible work, and we’ve spotted that they have three things in common:

They’ve spoken about what coronavirus meansfor the people they help
They’ve approached companies with a sharedpurpose
They’ve acted quickly

If you want support on embracing any of these themes or to hear more about any of the examples listed, get in touch on team@remarkablepartnerships.com

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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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