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What can F1 teach corporate partnerships?

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October 16, 2025

With the new season of Formula One starting this weekend, we have been reflecting on the ways that the world of corporate-charity partnerships is similar to the world of the race-track. We’ve come together to share the five key lessons Formula One can teach us about corporate partnerships.

The power of testing

The ethos of Formula One is continuous improvement. Teams are always looking for ways to improve performance. Engineers work on upgrades for months before they make it onto the car on race day. And they are always testing. In wind tunnels, running race simulations and pre-season testing. It’s not until you actually see the latest improvement out on the track that you know it’s making a difference.

Corporate partnerships professionals can learn a lot from this approach. We can practice our pitches in front of our colleagues and test new products with a focus group of business experts. Both of these audiences will provide us with incredible feedback to improve our performance.

The importance of your team

As corporate partnerships professionals, like formula one drivers, we have a tendency to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. We can easily fall into the trap of believing that the success or failure of the partnership totally depends on us. When actually, we are just the face of the partnership. We are completely reliant on the team around us to build and deliver the success we need.

Formula One drivers continually emphasise the importance of the team. The pit crew and engineers back at the factory. Whenever a driver wins a race you immediately here them acknowledge the team.

Corporate partnerships professionals should do the same. You need to ensure that your internal partnerships are as tight as possible. Involve your colleagues from the start and show them the vital role they have to play. By doing this you will transform your ability to win.

Return on investment

For the most part, the Formula One teams that invest the most in their car, drivers and team are the ones who win the most races. This enables them to secure the best engines, drivers and lead the way on innovation.

Corporate partnerships are the same. The charities that invest the most are the most successful. This means investing in vital areas such as training your current team, developing powerful propositions and recruiting new team members. It is unrealistic to expect continuous growth if you don't grow your team.

Purpose-driven brands will surprise you

Formula One is made up of ten teams, including some of the biggest car manufacturers in the world - such as Ferrari and Mercedes – and Red Bull, the energy drink brand. You might expect Red Bull to be at the back of the grid, but they have actually won eight world championships (four drivers and four constructors).

Taking part in Formula One makes sense for the team at Red Bull. Their mission statement is “giving wings to people and ideas”, and their brand values are all about excitement and energy. The pace of the sport, the exposure to their target market and the opportunity to stand out from their competitors all come together in a way that make Formula One too good an opportunity to miss.

How can you package your partnership opportunities in a similar way? What extraordinary partnership opportunity can you offer to a company so they can demonstrate their purpose?

Bouncebackability

We love this quote from Lewis Hamilton, “What people tend to forget is the journey that I had getting to Formula One. There were plenty of years where I had to learn about losing and having bad races.” So even though he is the most successful driver in the history of F1 he has experienced plenty of failures.

So much can go wrong in F1. Brakes, engine, tyres fail. Not to mention collisions with opponents and other forms of driver error. Even if you’re the best in the business, success isn’t guaranteed. This means that F1 drivers and teams need to develop incredible bouncebackability. So you didn’t finish the Italian Grand Prix? You need to suck up the loss and dust yourself down, because the Dutch Grand Prix is in a week’s time.

Success isn’t guaranteed for corporate partnerships professionals either. In fact failure is ineveitable. But it isn’t really failure, it’s just a company that isn’t ready to partner with your charity right now. So, dust yourself down and focus on the next opportunity.

If you’ve enjoyed this blog and want to get yourself race-track ready, consider booking yourself onto our Corporate Partnerships Masterclass this April: https://www.remarkablepartnerships.com/event/corporate-partnerships-masterclass-april2021/

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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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