Reputation and Relationships in the Charity Sector

WHEAT

Relationship Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Marketing

Approach

Impact

Charities rely on funding for their existence. Government mandated corporate donations provide valuable funding, but over time these companies can use these donations to further their own agenda.

The requirement for South African companies to donate part of their profits to charity had seen charities benefitting from this policy. Over time, the companies had transitioned to using this as a means to indirectly promote their products and services. In the patriarchal South African society, charities that focussed on women struggled to continue to attract these donations.

A Cynapse consultant undertook a project with the charity to understand the drivers and develop new directions with corporate South Africa to mitigate the downturn in donations.

• Interviews with corporations and individuals

• Visit projects to understand the impact of the charity

• Develop narratives to link charity projects to cross-societal benefits

• Produce marketing narratives

• Improve charity operations to link with new approach

The charity was able to take the new narratives to the corporate world, demonstrating how investment in grassroots projects run by women were benefiting the entire community. These messages were embedded into new publicity material. A new customer relationship management system was introduced into the charity, making operations more efficient and trackable. The charity witnessed an upturn in corporations interest in reallocating annual charity policies.