THE ALMS DEALERS

Partnerships with charities are increasingly important for corporate marketing. Martin Croft reports

Every year thousands of British parents buy their children new shoes because they have outgrown, but not outworn, their old ones. Clarks Shoes have now got together with Feed the Children to set up a scheme for parents to donate these shoes for distribution to children in the poverty-struck parts of the Balkans.

Since the scheme began a few years ago, over 770,000 pairs of shoes have been given to children in Bosnia, Croatia and Albania.

And this is not the only such scheme which Feed the Children has set up with business partners. It has a similar operation with Eurocamp, the leading self-drive camping holiday operator in the UK. One of Eurocamp’s main marketing strands is that all the equipment at their sites is new or nearly new, and when items become too old for their customers, they donate them to Feed the Children, again for use in the Balkans.

Jon Scourse, deputy director of fundraising for Feed the Children, says: “Eurocamp started giving us equipment that was no longer of use to them four years ago. We have sent over 1,200 refrigerators to clinics in Albania, which means they can store their medicines safely.” Since then the relationship has developed, and Eurocamp now gives Feed the Children space in its annual catalogues, which are sent out to 300,000 customers.

Another initiative is the Baby Box for Bosnia, containing all the essentials for mothers of new-born babies, over 20,000 of which have been sent out. This is being promoted as part of a scheme with Johnson & Johnson, and the sampling company, Bounty.

Bounty asks for donations to fund the baby boxes, in its sampling packs, which are distributed to new mothers in the UK. The printing is paid for by Johnson & Johnson, while the creative work was done for free by CM Lintas.

Scourse says: “It’s a win-win situation. It’s good for the image of the companies concerned, while at the same time it generates valuable funding for us, and helps raise our profile.”

Such partnerships between businesses and charities are becoming an increasingly important part of charitable fund-raising activities – and also of corporate marketing. But that doesn’t mean that charities are getting more money than they know what to do with – indeed, companies are getting more © demanding about their corporate giving.

This is seen in the relationship between international distribution and marketing group Inchcape and Raleigh International. By coincidence, both organisations found themselves reviewing their attitudes to corporate giving at the same time. Raleigh – which organises the Operation Raleigh expeditions for young people – was looking to link up with a company which could help them expand their scope outside the UK. Inchcape was looking to concentrate its corporate giving – which was running at around 100,000 a year, with no single donation larger than around 10,000 – with a single charity which had an international dimension, and who could use the money to make a real difference.

Inchcape is the world’s largest independent importer and distributor of motor vehicles, and also has significant motor retail interests. It bottles and distributes Coca-Cola in Chile and the Russian Federation, and, in a joint venture with Ricoh, distributes Ricoh, Konica and Mita office equipment in nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region. It also has wide marketing interests in the Far East, South-East Asia, the Middle East and Australasia.

Lindsay Boswell, director of plans at Raleigh International, explains: “We were stumbling around trying to internationalise ourselves a bit more. We decided Inchcape could give us access to a wider international market, partly through their employees worldwide and partly because of advertising and PR opportunities through their network.”

Under the deal struck between the two, Inchcape agreed to donate 1m in cash over five years, plus another 500,000 in goods and services. This donation supports one expedition a year to a country where Inchcape has operations. There are also places on it for five Inchcape employees in the Raleigh age range.

This year saw the first expedition, to Chile, where the Raleigh team built a community hall and clinic in the mountains for the Mapuchi Indians, Chile’s indigenous population.

Joanna Lavender, assistant manager for corporate affairs at Inchcape, explains the benefits from Inchcape’s point of view. She says: “We can work with Raleigh to help them organise expeditions, plus we can involve our principles through © donating our lending vehicles, fax machines and so on. The employee involvement gets a very good response, and is a good morale booster. And the first expedition has enabled us to raise our profile both in the UK, and in Chile, where we have received some very good press coverage.”

Another charitable organisation which has refocused itself to offer a more businesslike face to the corporate sector is The Prince’s Trust, the foundation set up by the Prince of Wales to help young people. It recently launched a new corporate identity, created by consultancy Bamber Forsyth, to improve its image.

Tom Shebbeare, chief executive officer of The Prince’s Trust, says: “We are now quite sophisticated and business driven. Five or ten years ago, people would give corporate donations and think no more about it. Now they expect to get some real direct marketing benefit in return.”

Mastercard, for example, is sponsoring what Shebbeare says will be the largest rock concert in 20 years, the Mastercard Masters of Music for the Prince’s Trust event, to be held this summer in London. Shebbeare says: “They are getting a huge amount of high-profile coverage out of it – and so are we. A charity can’t start taking that sort of financial risk on its own, so Mastercard is underwriting the cost of setting up the event. There will be worldwide TV sales, which will provide good coverage for us, and we should make at least 500,000 out of ticket sales.”

Clare Fuller, director of consultancy at Bamber Forsyth, explains the thinking behind the new logo for the charity. “Before we came along, they had four or five different identities for the different divisions. The overall effect was fragmented. They didn’t have presence – not enough shout. Businesses want to see their money go to something worthwhile, and know that their money has had impact. Also, they want to get recognition for their activity. So they want the charities they are involved with to have visibility.”

It is no accident that so many link ups between charities and businesses involve children or young people. Research suggests that child-oriented charities have much to offer business. A study which has just been published by NCH Action for Children shows that 60 per cent of parents and 67 per cent of children say they are definitely more interested in buying a company’s product if it is associated with a charity.

But only 21 per cent of companies realise that a charity link is important in forming the child’s purchasing decision.

Tony Manwaring, director of fundraising for NCH Action for Children, says: “This report clearly shows that companies need to develop their marketing strategies in an appropriate and ethical way when targeting the children’s market. Companies are missing a huge opportunity here.”

The results of the study Who Chooses? even surprised the Co-operative Bank, which funded it. Terry Thomas, managing director of the Bank, says: “Although we have incorporated Cause Related Marketing into our strategic plans for many years, we didn’t fully realise its importance in influencing the family’s purchasing decision.”

NCH Action for Children is using the study as a major plank in its marketing strategy, with a direct mail campaign, created by Burnett Associates, to be sent out to 5,000 companies which market to children.

Increasingly, we can expect to see this sort of campaign – the use of classic marketing techniques to target the marketers themselves – as charities become more competitive.

And while purists may question the effect this commercialisation of charity has had – particularly the way some smaller charities will find it difficult to convince companies to continue to donate – they will surely also have to accept that anything that makes the money donated work harder and more efficiently, benefits all.