Working with charities works for Business

By Roy Stannard, Head of Income Generation & Comms, Off The Fence Trust

What?!

Ok, you’re a fledgling business just making your way in the world. You’re a medium sized SME that has struggled to get through Covid. You’re a large corporate whose shareholders scrutinise every digit in the management accounts.

How on earth can you justify supporting a charity?

Yet, most of your peers and competitors are..

Why might that be?

On a superficial level, you want to support a good cause, one that might be close to your heart. Off The Fence has a couple of supporters who have been homeless themselves.

But supporting a charity can also be good for business.

Raising morale as well as funds

The benefit most often fed back to me is the boost to staff morale. One hundred people took part in our Big Sleep-out last November. Amongst them were three companies with teams led by chief executives. Fun, fulfilling, profile raising.

It’s also a great reason to get out of bed in the morning.

..and what better way to get buy-in than to allow staff to select the charity and then as a team engage – with photos, testimonials, certificates and engagement – with both the charity and its clients.

Keeping your best staff for the long haul

Your best people (you know, the ones who bring you a coffee in the morning with a smile) are the ones most likely to enjoy working with a charity. It makes them feel good about themselves and the community they share.

If you allow them to explore their charitable instincts through volunteering with or fundraising for a charity they believe in, it means that they will stick around.  Loyalty usually means more things get done and done faster. So that early morning coffee smile sticks around all day.

Talent retention also means that core skills don’t need to be replaced every five minutes – and you save on recruitment costs.

Customers will say nice things about you

Creating a conversation with your customers by encouraging them to fundraise or volunteer is also a positive win for your business. Which business are they going to patronise? The socially responsible one or the one that averts its community face?

Ask them to leave reviews saying why they do business with your company. Do go and check out your fellow Brighton Chamber member Philip Broxsome at Pysdro and the next level of business review platform. It enables you to use a unique URL to get your customers to go and say nice things about you in text and video form – allowing you to play them via a carousel on the home page.

https://www.psydro.com/

You’ll be surprised by how many cite your charity involvement. Use My Favourite Voucher Codes that funnels 20% of their profits to your chosen charity. Your customers save money, donate and love you more all in the same very satisfying package.

Media darlings.. Media.

Charities also have a great relationship with the media. Getting regularly mentioned in their press releases, blogs, social media and websites will add to your reputation at little or no cost.

In networking environments your relationship with your chosen charity or charities will stand up in sharp relief, effortlessly shaping the friendly, caring image of your company.

Your bottom line will almost certainly be boosted. An improved public profile will accelerate profit margins. You can even donate a percentage of your profits and even better, it could be tax deductible.

Back to our Big Sleep Out. Our patrons Graham Potter and Bruno Saltor, along with Micky Reid, came and slept out with the rest of the 100. That week premier league clubs were told they couldn’t wear away kits for home games in aid of the homeless. By doing what he did, Graham Potter became a football folk hero overnight and we got TV, radio and press coverage and a 4 minute video shot by the Club’s own film crew that was shown in front of 31,000 at the Brighton-Leeds game. I think that’s a win-win! Something the Seagulls could do with at present.

One company alone, Insurance brokers Sutton Winson from Burgess Hill, sent a team of eight to the Sleep-out and promised to match fund the amount raised by their staff via sponsorship. As this amounted to £8,500, the total raised from one company alone was £17k – a record for corporate giving in this event.

Working with charities can be good for business as well as good for the soul.

By the way, if you want to get involved in Off The Fence’s 25th Anniversary celebrations and challenges visit www.offthefence.org.uk/25years You’ll be in good company..

Roy Stannard
Head of Income Generation

About Off The Fence Trust 

roy.stannard@offthefence.org.uk
01273 933885
07803 269154

Since 1997, Off The Fence has been working in the Brighton and Hove area with the area’s most vulnerable people, tackling social and spiritual poverty, and helping members of the community who are facing crisis situations with little or no support. Our priority is to provide a practical, emotional and psychological safety net for the socially excluded in Brighton & Hove. To this end Off The Fence operates three projects: Antifreeze, a day centre for the homeless – part of an emergency outreach to rough sleepers: a schools programme for 6-18 year olds; and Gateway, a newly purchased and extended women’s centre supporting women in crisis.

Our mission can be summarised as: Resisting poverty. Empowering people. Restoring hope. 

Our website: https://www.offthefence.org.uk  Charity No. 110877