Business sponsorship - done that and worn the tee shirt

Whenever I talk about business sponsorship I inevitably get a groan saying "Oh we have tried that but in this financial climate getting money out of anyone is practically zero".

So it will probably come as a surprise to you that we do have successes and therefore its not surprising that Big Lottery have  funded for us a 3 year period to roll out our ideas in partnership with 5 other Voluntary Councils across North Wales.

To give you an idea as to what is possible through building up relationships locally as well as having a credible voluntary organisation delivering valued and much needed services in the community  I will tell you a story of one of our most recent case studies. They always say your latest case study is the one you most remember and so here goes.

Late last year an organisation came to us asking for help with what in effect was a business review. So we took them through their business plan making changes as we went  and eventually coming up with an action plan which  identified  in the main the organisation had outgrown their existing premises and needed to move to support their increased clientelle. The business plan came up with a couple of options and the two we focused on were buying a property or securing a long lease at a competitive rate. Now this is when we set to work on finding business sponsorship by approaching various organisations that we had established a relationship with and eventually came across a business that had exactly what we were looking for in terms of property. Following negotiations we came up with a "cracking" deal for the vol org and for the business in that we played to the objectives of the business as well as the vol org in that we knew why the business was so keen to let the building. Having secured the building which is huge,  that vol org is now in a position it can sub let bringing in extra income to support their core activity and this income win is over and above the rental reduction they secured following their  move to a larger building - a double win . Now the vol org are in the building and are confronted with requirements for a new kitchen, ICT , complete decoration and other bits and pieces  and probably totalling in all to about £10,000 capital spend and yes you have guessed through the sheer endeavour of that vol org and their staff and embracing the business sponsorship ethos we have been  promoting they have secured another 4 business sponsorships  which pays for all the work to be carried out.

Throughout this story did you notice I did not mention a cheque once - simply because no money changed hands aside from the rent which I am not liberty to disclose for confidentiality reasons.

What has all this activity meant to the bottom line of this vol org - well  they will enhance their bottom line on an annual basis by £15,000 and that is recurring revenue gains plus as I mentioned they have secured a one off  capital sum of about £10,000.

Maybe not great amounts of saving but bearing in mind  this is just one voluntary organisation and we have other success stories in the last 16 months we have been operating. If we can do this on a small scale in Denbighshire what could be  achieved across Wales  added to which we have built up lasting relationships with those businesses because they do not feel pressured to dig  deep into their pockets instead if they have free materials , spare office premises, volunteer time  then that is the currency we will gladly accept because ultimately as a society we are all doing our bit to help improve the quality of lives of everyone in our community.

Watch this space for another case study. I had hoped we could publish our evaluation report of our first 16 months of business sponsorship activity  but unfortunately  we still need clearance from the funder that supported that initial pilot project.