Case Study: St. George's Crypt and Barclay's Bank

Martin Patterson from St. George's Crypt day centre gave a fantastic example of how to engage the private sector as a major donor. St. George's Crypt began its involvement with Barclay's Bank when a Barclay's employee began volunteering at the day centre. Soon this turned into match funding on food items for the day centre. Next, the Crypt got Barclay's to sponsor a publication called 'Entertaining Angels', which gained funds and publicity for the centre. The bank also benefited from sponsorship publicity. Next, the Crypt was able to host team building days where Barclay's employees would come to the centre for a day to help out by painting or performing some other task. That lead to Barclay's funding St. George's Crypt food budget for two years, and after they had paid for the food, the bank was convinced to fund a kitchen conversion for the centre. Eventually, the bank sponsored St. George's Crypt Create kitchen and training provision, as well as the Crypt Parliamentary reception. The day centre was also able to start effective dialogue with Barclay's other Community partners, and service users have been able to attend training days held by the bank.

Some key advice from Martin was to:

• Develop sustainable relationships with potential private sector partners - don't ask them for money right away, you have to build up to the ask! You should get people involved with your work first, which sometimes means accepting small donations or support at the beginning (Martin remarked that he'd lost track of how many times the Crypt had been repainted on team-building days), and building up to something bigger.
• Mutual understanding and mutual benefit - make clear how a partnership benefits your private sector partner as well as your service users. Make sure you understand your partner's business and that they understand yours!
• Network, network, network! Set yourself a goal of collecting 3 business cards at any event you go to - you never know who could end up helping you.

Another great initiative was where one organisation convinced a local jewelry shop to sell a particular range of jewelry as a charity project - so a portion of the proceeds were donated to the centre. The shop was able to secure free advertisement in the local paper because it was for a charity initiative, and benefited not only from a portion of the sales of the products, but also from free publicity.

Some tips:

• Think of a local business that might be able to sell products for your charity.
• Start sending them information about your work and invite them to open days. If you can, try to develop a relationship with the staff or ownership - for example, does anyone with a connection to the business volunteer for you?
• Lay out the benefits for them of fundraising for your charity - good publicity, attracting new customers, some profits from the sales, and the satisfaction that comes from contributing to a worthwhile cause.

Case Study: St. George's Crypt and Carey Jones Architects

Martin Patterson also provided a great example of successful event fundraising in his presentation on involving the private sector (available to download). After meeting Gordon Carey through Common Purpose in 2000, Martin was able to develop a more longstanding relationship with Carey Jones Architects where the company helped to organise events to fundraise for the day centre.

• The Crypt received financial support as charity partner in three Carey Jones Valentines parties.
• Carey Jones organised two Fashion Shows attended by key corporate people from Leeds - thus giving the Crypt access to potential major donors.
• Carey Jones employees were also key stakeholders in successful 75th Anniversary Fund Raising Committee (raised £750,000 from all sources in our 75th year – 2005).
• They were a key partner in a successful fundraising event called “The Crypt Factor” which has raised nearly £50,000 for the Crypt in two years.

In fact, the relationship that began with event fundraising eventually translated into further support in other areas. Carey Jones became foundation partners in a major accommodation/training project called “The Next Step”, and they played significant role in brokering materials and furniture for Crypt’s HCIP funded Faith Lodge project.