Charity of the Year Partnerships
This is a short, simple guide to making the most of charity of the year partnerships, including how to find companies to approach.
What is a Charity of the Year Partnership?
- A “Charity of the Year” partnership involves a company selecting a specific charity to support throughout a designated period, usually one, but sometimes 2 years.
- During this time, the company actively engages in fundraising, awareness campaigns, and other collaborative efforts to benefit the chosen charity.
Charity of the Year Key Considerations
- Commitment. Both parties should commit to the partnership’s success, dedicating resources and effort.
- The good news is that companies tend to have a COTY every year so often have experience of running fundraising events and, possibly, a dedicated person or charity committee to coordinate this.
- You need to make sure that everyone is clear ad who is doing what and that you are clear about their expectations of you and have put the resources in place to deliver on these.
- Clear Objectives. Define specific goals, such as fundraising targets, employee engagement and how success will be measured.
- I find disagreements tend to arise mainly through misunderstandings and this helps to avoid that, as well as.
- Giving everyone a target to aim for and enabling you to show how well you've delivered for them.
- Communication. Regular communication is essential. Set up regular meetings to discuss progress and address any challenges.
- Relationships need to be built then maintained and it can really help if you provide a steady stream of stories, case studies and images and tag the company on your social media posts.
- It promotes your charity, helps to motivate staff to do more and allows the company to use these in its PR.
- Legal Agreements. Charity regulators require most commercial arrangements for charities to have a written agreement (see below) outlining roles, responsibilities, and expectations.
- This also helps to bring clarity to the relationship, helping to avoid misunderstandings.
- Alignment. Ensure alignment between the company’s values, mission, and the charity’s cause. Shared goals lead to more effective partnerships.
- To be chosen as a COTY and to make it work really well, you want to approach companies you would want to work with and who would want to work with your charity.
What Does a Great Charity Partnership Look Like?
- Customers (& Maybe Staff). Consider who their customers are and to what extent what they value and are likely to support fits with your cause.
- For a fast fashion company that focusses on the youth market a good fit might be a youth, or a charity that supports people in the country they have their garment manufacturing.
- Market Sectors. Does the company work in a market or sector that fits with your charity's work?
- An obvious example would be a sportswear manufacturer and a sports charity but.
- There may be equally good but less immediately obvious reasons, such as a a fast fashion retailer and an environmental recycling company.
- Business Objectives. Does the company have objectives that your charity supports or promotes?
- For example, quite a lot of companies identify helping people into employment, often young people, or.
- More specifically, some engineering companies support STEM education, whilst others support women because they are under represented in certain workforces, such as engineering.
- Values & Culture. To what extent do the values and culture of the company reflect your own?
- Major companies will have Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and/or Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategies but you can learn a lot just by reading the language and tone of their About Us page.
- You're looking for companies that have a genuine commitment to CSR and aims that fit with your work. For example, they may say they focus on specific groups (young people), or activities (the environment) or culture (innovation), or locations.
- Location. Some companies support charities across the UK but many support those local to their outlets or offices or in regions in which they operate.
- Relationships. It is sometimes essential and almost always helpful if one of your staff or supporters has a connection, or better still, works at a company, particularly if in a key or senior role.
- Once you have your list of prospective companies, circulate it to your people and you may be pleasantly surprised.
- Timing. Corporate foundations may have specific funding periods, a charity of the year will usually be chosen round about the same time each year and, even if not, check what the companies fiscal year is. Most begin the budget process a few months before this.
How to Find Charity of the Year Partners
Help Finder has a Charity of the Year option, with 50+ companies listed. Register with Charity Excellence (it's free), then login and go to Help Finder. Select UK wide, your UK country and any major city, or English county, then the Cause Related Marketing option from the Categories pull down menu. As at Aug 24, there were 50+ companies. Quick, simple and very effective.
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You can also use the Key Word box to search for specific factors such as young or older people, women, the environment, employment, health, local community and small charities. To find out how to make the most of this, read our guide to using Help Finder for corporate fundraising.
Managing Partnership Risk
Due Diligence. As with any partnership, you should undertake appropriate due diligence. Here's our guide to charity due diligence and the other for fundraising due diligence.
Virtue Signalling. Virtue signalling, including 'green washing', is when companies make exaggerated or even false claims about their commitment to some form of ethical working.
- Look to see what underpins any ethical commitments in terms of specific action, funding commitment and/or evidence of delivery or impact.
- Also look back to see if the company has consistently committed to a course of action for a period of time, which it followed through on and to see if there has been any media criticism or controversies.
Conflict of Interest. Ensure that you identify any possible, perceived or actual conflicts of interest and deal with these. If a conflict of interest might result in personal benefit to a trustee, your governing document must contain provision for this and you will wish to check if you require the approval of your charity regulator.
What Charities Can Offer a Company Partnership
- Brand Association. Charities are liked and trusted by the public and companies supporting us benefit from positive brand association.
- Employee Engagement. Employees are the general public and volunteering opportunities, fundraising events, and skill-sharing.
- Can help to motivate staff and improve engagement.
- May make the company more attractive to potential employees who may value its commitment and.
- May also help the company with team building and developing skills.
- Marketing and PR. The Media likes good news stories and collaborating on joint campaigns, events, and media coverage can make a good story go further, raising the company's profile and creating a positive image.
- Networking Opportunities. Even often very small charities can have significant reach through a combination of their website, social media, newsletters, events and even posters, potentially introducing the company to a wide range of potential customers, clients, or partners.
Partnership Agreement
Having some form of written agreement is usually a legal/regulatory requirement for this kind of activity. However, in my experience problems usually arise through misunderstandings and, except for the very simplest arrangements, I think having even a very simply written agreement can help to prevent this.
- Aim.
- This is just something I always do. No agreement can cover everything, so I think if you specify what you hope to achieve together and how, there is less risk of disagreement and it also gives you a basis to deal with anything that comes up which isn't specifically covered in your agreement.
- Purpose and Objectives.
- Clearly define the purpose of the campaign and the desired outcomes.
- Specify the goals, such as raising funds, increasing brand visibility, or promoting a specific cause.
- Roles and Responsibilities.
- Outline the responsibilities of both parties: the charity and the company.
- Define who will handle marketing, communication, and execution tasks.
- Duration and Termination.
- Specify the campaign duration - start and end dates, and also any key milestones.
- Include provisions for early termination or renewal.
- Financial Arrangements.
- Describe how funds will be raised (e.g., percentage of sales, fixed donation per product sold).
- Specify payment terms and frequency.
- If more than one charity is involved, details of how the funds raised will be shared between them.
- Marketing and Promotion.
- Detail how the campaign will be promoted (e.g., social media, advertising, in-store displays).
- Ensure alignment with the charity's brand guidelines.
- Again, a personal thing but I think it can be helpful to include a statement about each party, as this can help to ensure they are portrayed by the other in the way and language they would wish to be.
- Intellectual Property and Use of Assets.
- Address the use of the charity's name, logo, and any other assets, including that such use ends when the agreement terminates.
- Specify any restrictions or permissions related to branding.
- Reporting and Transparency.
- Define reporting requirements (e.g., regular updates on campaign performance).
- The charity should monitor and review the performance of a commercial partnership on a regular basis.
- Ensure transparency regarding funds raised and their allocation.
- Legal and Regulatory Considerations.
- Parties to the Agreement.
- The names and addresses of all the people and organisations the agreement is between (the parties to the agreement) and.
- The date on which each party signed the agreement should be included.
- Annexes. Depending on the scale and complexity of the agreement it may be helpful to attach annexes, such as a payment schedule/budget, brand guidelines/house style/tone of voice or points of contact details for finance, PR etc.
Other Things to Think About
- Other Kinds of Support. Charity of the Year partnerships usually involve staff fundraising but there are a wide range of ways in which companies can support charities. As you build your relationship bear these in mind, as it may be one or more may well work well for the company. You can find lots of ideas in our introductory guide to corporate fundraising.
- Longer-term Support. To maximise how well your partnership works, you need to meet their expectations, grow your relationship with them and demonstrate the impact working with you has had. If it works really well, just maybe they'll consider you as a long term partner.
- Leveraging Your Expertise. And even if not, at the end of your partnership you will have shown that you can work well with corporates. Consider asking them to write a short case study and to give you a quote or 2, which you'll be able to to make your next corporate fundraising application even more compelling.
Charity of the Year Resources Produced by Others
Chartered Institute of Fundraising
Regulatory Guidance
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This Guide to Charity of the Year Partnerships is Not Professional Advice
This guide to charity of the year (COTY) partnerships is for general interest only and does not constitute professional legal or financial advice. I'm neither a lawyer, nor an accountant, so not able to provide this, and I cannot write guidance that covers every charity or eventuality. I have included links to relevant regulatory guidance, which you must check to ensure that whatever you create reflects correctly your charity’s needs and your obligations. In using this resource, you accept that I have no responsibility whatsoever from any harm, loss or other detriment that may arise from your use of my work. If you need professional advice, you must seek this from someone else. To do so, register, then login and use the Help Finder directory to find pro bono support. Everything is free.
Ethics note: this resource was partly created using AI.
