Let’s Talk about Corporate Giving

23 Jun Let’s Talk about Corporate Giving

24 June 2025

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

I once solicited a company in central Wisconsin. It was a family-owned company and the family was supportive generally, though the elder generation was aging. The company’s foundation was headed by one of our board members. She gave away an amount of money each year based on company profits. I was asking for $30,000 in a year in which the company had done fairly well.

This was her answer that I never forgot:

“David, sure. I could give you $30,000 for your project, and sure, the project is right in our service territory. But what are you going to do for me? Send me a thank you note and put the company’s name on a rock out on a trail somewhere?

“Or – I could give 30 libraries $1,000 each to buy a computer. And each library would then put a sign on the monitor thanking the company for the generous gift that made this workstation possible.

“If you were me, what would you do?”

She taught me a great lesson that day. (I told her I thought she should give us $1,000 for a computer – she ended up giving us $5,000.)

On every Board, there are a handful of Board members who are interested in aggressively pursuing corporate support. It seems logical to them that the business community would support community nonprofits as part of their commitment to community service. It should be easy money.

It’s also fundraising that is familiar. Lions, Kiwanis, and Optimist clubs are all built on the fundraising principle of business friends leveraging fundraising activities to build business relationships with each other. Even United Way has some of that feeling on a somewhat larger scale.

But let’s get real.

Nationally, business giving is less than 7% of the money given to nonprofits every year, and has been for years.

If you don’t have an arena roof that can be seen from space, Staples is not going to give you a million dollars.

In fact, Staples is probably not going to give you $10,000.

I completed a development audit for a land trust some years ago now. This land trust was very proud of its corporate program. They had good board participation, and they met with most of the companies in person each year. Several of the companies had been giving steadily for more than ten years. Everything was really cool – right? What’s not to like?

The picture that emerged from the development audit, however, was a little different.

• 159 companies gave a total of $350,000 that year. A big number by any standard.
• 2 gifts were extraordinary and connected to a significant project in which the companies had a publicity stake.
• 10 others were giving $5,000 or more each year.
• The next 12 were giving $1,000 or more each year.
• The remaining 135 were giving less than $1,000 and averaging $150.

So $330,000 of the $350,000 came from 24 companies. I asked them – “Why not stop after the 24 companies?” Why not take all that organizational energy and enthusiasm visiting the other 135 – especially from board members – and devote it to cultivating individual donors for major gifts? (Unlike cultivating individuals, the $20,000 coming from 135 companies was not going to grow over time and not one of them was ever going to leave a bequest when it died.)

Importantly, corporate giving is almost never philanthropic. It’s transactional. And that means it’s scalable only by increasing the price point or adding businesses to the program. Large gifts to a few non-profits are almost never in a business’ best interest, so most business giving is in very small amounts to a larger number of nonprofits.

Worse, many companies make gifts in-kind rather than contribute cash. But if the gifted goods or services aren’t actually budgeted, they really don’t help much. And consider this: is it easier to solicit cash from a donor and spend it on wine for the gala, or is it easier to solicit the wine as a corporate donation? The first can be done in the mail. The latter is solicited in person, or at least on the phone.

Corporate philanthropy is an oxymoron. Why is this idea so confusing?

I’m not suggesting that business cultivation is worthless. There is another benefit to business support. Business support can lend credibility to the organization’s work. When businesses sponsor something, their endorsement is implied, which works in both their favor and yours. The trick is that you have to work to capture that endorsement.

What are you doing to take advantage of this potential? Publicizing gifts from businesses works for both you and the business, and is often connected to the reason for giving in the first place. That’s what the sponsorship slide at the gala is all about.

But you can take that a step further by getting business leaders to comment publicly about their gift. Seeking quotes is good cultivation for the business donors and useful as endorsement material – both. When donations come in, interview the CEO or another senior executive and seek permission to use a quote in promotional literature and on the website. Better yet, videotape the interview, edit the material down to 60-90 seconds, and make it available for both your website and the company’s.

So, here are some other suggestions:

First take a serious look at your return on investment with corporate donors. For the most part, this is “high-touch” fundraising (as opposed to “high-tech”). It takes a lot of time on the part of both staff and board members. Understand how much it costs and how much it raises, and make appropriate decisions related to how many businesses you wish to cultivate.

Establish a threshold gift below which it really isn’t worth additional time spent. Perhaps a $5,000 annual gift as a lead event sponsor is worth the time and attention it takes to cultivate and maintain the key relationships with the company. Perhaps that same time and attention isn’t worth it for $150. I’m not prescribing any particular line here – it will be different for different organizations. I’m saying that you should know what your particular line is.

Concentrate as much of the work as possible to avoid allowing it to become “what the board does for fundraising.” For example, maybe June becomes your business relations month. Everybody spreads out and visits as many companies as possible within the month, to:

• • • • • • • • • ask for renewal sponsorships for the event(s),
                • make initial visits to companies not yet giving to listen and learn what they need to get from their community giving program,
                • request and secure quotable quotes from business leaders, and
                • make presentations to employee groups about the organizational successes the company is helping make possible.

Explicitly get your board members involved. Listen to them, and show that you were listening last year by referring back to how you are delivering on that exchange. And ask how you might even enhance that relationship. But then after the board has finished its work with corporate giving, redeploy that same effort into building relationships with individual funders instead. Don’t overdo corporate work at the expense of individual cultivation work.

Understand the price point perspective and be consistent. If a $500 sponsorship gets a certain level of stuff (visibility, signage, podium recognition, and so on), make sure $1,000 sponsors get substantially more. Do you have enough stuff to offer to get a $10,000 sponsor?

And to the best of your ability, turn the relationship around and see it from the company’s perspective. What do they see from you? Just the annual renewal visit is not enough. Personally communicate with business donors often during the year – reports and photos from the event they sponsored, tidbits about progress, special invitations to other events, and so on. This even goes for matching gift companies. Nothing creates atmosphere for future giving like the feeling that this year’s gift made a difference.

The bottom line is that the solicitation of businesses nearly always seems like a better idea than it turns out to be. We have to work just as hard to secure sponsorships of $100 or $500 as we would soliciting individual donors for $5,000 or $10,000.

Keep after it, but don’t let that 7% define your fundraising program.

Cheers, and have a great week!

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by Adrien Stachowiak courtesy Pixabay