Charity partnerships can create lots of benefits for those companies providing support, explains Dave McEvoy
In the UK alone, an estimated £15.4 billion was donated to charities in 2024. A significant part of this comes from corporate donations – but is there more our businesses could be doing to help?
As well as raising money to directly support these charities, companies will often offer free, or ‘pro bono’, work to support them.
Deloitte, for example, provides pro bono consulting services to nonprofits through its Deloitte Impact Day. They’ve worked with organisations like United Way and City Year to improve operations and strategy.
Google offers nonprofits pro bono access to Google employees like engineers and designers through their Fellows program. They’ve worked with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Malala Fund on data and product strategy.
At DMAC Media, we make websites, so there’s a clear way that we can support charities. This year, we’re working with Pink Sisters and Misters, a small UK cancer charity, providing a new website and digital support so they can keep doing what they do best: supporting people with cancer.
It’s a genuine surprise that we don’t see more companies doing this. I’m not saying everyone should do pro bono work out of the goodness of their hearts, but I am saying that these partnerships can benefit both the recipients and the providers.
What We’re Already Doing
There’s lots of ways that companies can, and do, engage with charities. Of course, company owners can make direct cash donations, or employees might band together to complete some kind of sponsored event or challenge. These are popular team-building activities as well as money-raising endeavors.
Rising in popularity is the chance for employees to take days out of work to complete volunteering. This is particularly effective since they’re able to support charities local to them or the company, feeding directly back into the local community. There are examples of companies like Salesforce offering employees up to one full week of paid volunteer time off per year as part of their philanthropic strategy.
What we don’t tend to see so much of is companies offering their professional services to charities – the services that they’re experts in.
It’s Not All About the Cash
Charities do not function on money alone. Like any other organisation, they need marketing, legal, IT, and design work to run smoothly and successfully. Those are skills that are often lacking in-house, especially for charities like Pink Sisters and Misters, which runs off volunteers alone.
According to recent statistics, volunteers represent over half of the charity workforce in the UK, meaning over 3 million people are giving their time freely to charities, with more than half (53%) of voluntary sector employees working for small charities (1–49 employees). Of those, a quarter (25%) work for micro charities (1–10 employees).
The cost of these services through traditional means can be astronomical. The support we are providing Pink Sisters and Misters would normally cost around £7,000. Staff members would have to run a lot of miles or bake a lot of cakes to raise that kind of money.
If that money was donated to the Pink Sisters in cash, it’s unlikely they would justify spending it on a new website. If they did, it could take hours of research and discovery calls to find an agency that suits their needs. If your volunteers don’t have existing knowledge of a professional service like website design, it’s a tall task.
Professional services can be transformational for charities. Accounting and financial management helps them manage donations and adhere to tax requirements. Legal services support negotiations and assist with charity registration and data protection. Marketing and brand awareness clarifies messaging and visuals to increase awareness and raise donations. All these things help a charity reach more people, make more money, and ultimately achieve their goals as an organisation.
Benefits for Business Owners
In an ideal world, we’d all give to charity and expect nothing in return – but this is business, and business owners, including myself, must make decisions that financially benefit the company. With charity partnerships, there’s lots of benefits to those companies providing support.
The most obvious benefit is demonstrating your company’s values by choosing an appropriate charity partner. Associating with reputable charities improves public perception and may make customers and clients view your business more favourably.
Choosing a charity that is important to one or more employees increases staff morale. For example, if an employee has a particular passion for animal welfare or has experience with a particular disease or illness, raising money for an appropriate charity may boost satisfaction and retention. Staff often feel prouder working for a company that supports meaningful causes.
Collaborating with nonprofits opens doors to new partnerships, customer bases, and stakeholders who value community involvement. People who volunteer for charities often have alternative jobs, so offering professional services to charities can open many doors for additional, commercial business.
Pro bono projects are great opportunities for junior members of a team, or those looking to develop professionally, to hone their skills in a lower risk environment. Charities still deserve a high-quality professional service, but if they receive a service free of charge, they are likely to be more lenient with junior employees looking to develop a portfolio when compared with commercial clients.
Working closely with a nonprofit that operates within a business’ scope can provide valuable market insights into new demographics or communities, which can inform future business strategies. Depending on where the business is based, donations of time, services, or goods may even offer tax advantages – though this should be navigated with care and professional advice.
Spotting Potential Hurdles
Not all businesses provide broad-ranging services like legal advice or design work that they can offer out to charities, but that’s okay. The chances are, there will be appropriate charities that will benefit from your product or service, no matter how niche.
Like with any project, the scoping, deliverables, and mutual accountability should be made very clear from the outset to avoid misunderstanding of what is being offered. Time frames should be clear; for example, specify whether you are offering one month of work or ongoing support.
Any work offered should also be sustainable for the charity. For example, it’s fine making a brand-new website for a pro bono client, but you must train them on how to update it with new information or troubleshoot issues if there is an end date to the partnership. Any package offered should be fully comprehensive if the partnership is going to be truly valuable for the charity; otherwise you could just be creating a headache for them later down the line.
Conclusion
A shift in mindset is needed by professional service providers. Instead of seeing charity work as a burden, they should realise the mutual benefits that come from collaboration with nonprofits.
Pro bono work does not have to take all the time and resources under the sun; one project per year can have massive benefits to both a deserving charity and the business alike.
Ultimately, embracing pro bono work can strengthen company culture, boost employee morale, and enhance a firm’s public reputation.
