Doing good is good for business!

An introduction to the benefits of charitable/community

involvement and how best to go about it.

Darren Stevens Dip Inst M, MCIMPrestbury Marketing & Consulting Limited

Doing good is good for business!

What is charitable and community involvement?

The benefits of charitable and community involvement.

The different ways in which you can get involved.

What can go wrong?

The process I recommend.

BUT, before I go too far ........

Introduction to Prestbury Marketing & Consulting

My background over 25 years in Marketing & PR – Bang & Olufsen and Chelsea Building Society.

Long history of charity involvement.

Started Prestbury Marketing & Consulting April 2010.

Access to “Director” level resource in bite size chunks.- Can top up existing resource.- Tackle specific projects.

Total focus on results.

No bias to specific media or service.

Over 20 businesses now using our services.

So what exactly is charitable and community involvement?

Putting something back into the community.

Should be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Can be financial support, but increasingly a combination of money, resources, product, expertise.

Can be charities, community groups, sports, the arts and much, much more ......

The benefits of charitable and community involvement

Good PR, sometimes in the media.

Excellent for CSR credentials, increasingly a requirement in larger firms supply chain requirements.

Possibly access to other corporate supporters.

Can be seen to support key clients causes.

Possibly access /exposure to individual supporters.

Team building/staff development opportunities.

Does not have to involve giving money.

Rewarding for those involved.

The different ways of getting involved .......

Charity adoption.

Staff challenges/volunteering (company time, own time or a mix?).

Practical support – product or expertise.

Fund-raising.

Supporting events.

Dress down days.

Financial support – sponsorship or advertising.

What can go wrong?You can fail to achieve what you set out to.

You can incur expenditure and resource and “get nothing back”.

You can in extreme instances get adverse PR.

The cause can be a drag on the business.

Communication can breakdown.

Mis-understandings can arise.

BUT ....... all of this can be avoided with good planning and preparation.

The process I recommend – an overview

Decide what form of charity/community involvement you want.

Decide what you want to get out it.

Decide which charity/community involvement you want to support – be pro-active not re-active.

Set a budget and stick to it.

Write a policy and adhere to it (on the whole).

Enter into a fixed term relationship.

Enter into it like any other business relationship.

Tell the world what you are doing.

Regularly review and do what you said you would.

The decision processFirst question has to be – what do you want to get out of it?Business Contact with businesses Fit with target customers or product offeringTeam building PRBeing seen to do good

Local or national?

Do you involve staff in the decision process?

Or does the Chief Executive decide?

National vs LocalNational –More people may have heard of the causeLess likely to have to “explain” itPotential for limited exposure outside of the areaScope for promoting business through supporter base (worth trying but unlikely to get the larger the charity)

Local –Increased chance of local press and media coverageMay benefit from local supporter baseChance of reciprocal business – their events and niche offersCharity may have local events programme you can get involved inYour support is likely to make a more meaningful differencePossibility of greater engagement from local staff

Potentially the divide can be blurred between nationaland local e.g. Winston’s Wish.

Order of eventsDraw up shortlist or determine favoured candidate

Visit favoured candidate – learn about programme of events and scope for staff involvement

Agree duration, start /end and lines of communication.

Tell charity to be adopted about your business –what you doyour target marketwhat you want to get out of itwhat you will do and can give (including limits)

Determine your calendar and target

Customers to give? Customer visibility -reception, website, meeting room, restaurant?

Form staff committee? Who is going to lead?

Any staff matching?

PR - launch, during and at the end (don’t overlook need for an internal launch if you have a lot of staff to get buy in).

Other hints and tipsRespond to media appeals.

Consider support options – where you only commit, where you benefit i.e. % of sale, customer satisfaction survey responses.

Leverage your suppliers and contacts.

Use tools like JustGiving when fund-raising to ease admin burden.

If you do not have many ideas yourself, go to a cause where the opportunities for involvement exist.

Take account of what resources you have – in general and specialist e.g. PR.

Consider a written agreement.

Consider getting external help with the process.

Any Questions?

T: 0788 904 2345M: darren.stevens@prestburymarketing.co.ukW: www.prestburymarketing.co.uk