8-Step Guide for Starting Nonprofit & Business Partnerships

How to Find Businesses Who Will Collect Donations at Checkout, Sponsor Your Events, Send Volunteers, and More

Businesses care about your nonprofit’s mission. That’s because businesses are run by people, and people care. Part of your job as a fundraiser is therefore to find businesses your nonprofit can partner with.

Partnerships between nonprofits and businesses help advance your mission in many ways. They can lead to direct donations from their customers and employees, event sponsorships, volunteers, and more.

In part 1 of this 2-part series, we revealed some actionable statistics on how customers behave and feel about donating to nonprofits at checkout, while doing their shopping. Read part 1 here.

Collecting donations at checkout is a terrific way to generate that all-important recurring revenue, and that is the focus of this guide. But, whether you’re interested in that or in the other benefits of a partnership between your nonprofit and a business, use this 8-step guide to find the best businesses to join forces with to advance your mission.

The first 5 steps concern finding a business to partner with. That last 3 reveal what to do after a business agrees to partner with your organization.

 

Step 1: Find a Business That Might Want to Partner with Your Mission

Sometimes there will be natural alignment between your mission and their business. The most obvious example is a pet store and an animal nonprofit. But think deeply about this. Just about every nonprofit can find a business or industry that aligns in some way.

A nonprofit that does work in Muslim nations, for example, could partner with Halal grocers. In a large city, there will be many such stores. Any nonprofit can find at least one business that aligns with your mission.

But don’t stop there. Alignment isn’t everything. The right business connection can also be relational or personal.

Remember, many donors give at checkout because the cause is personal to them. Well, what if your cause is personal the business owner? Then they will probably be thrilled to support your mission through their business!

Beyond that, tap your existing network of relationships. Ask your major donors if they have business connections. Most of them will have many. Ask your recurring donors. Ask your board. And ask loyal volunteers.

You only need one good-sized business to say yes to reap a rewarding long term partnership.

The ideal business for donating at checkout is one that sees a lot of customers and has lower-dollar value transaction sizes. Then, the $1 or $2 you ask for will multiply by hundreds or thousands. But, you can also go to car dealerships and real estate agents and businesses like that. It will just look different for them, as they are more likely to tell customers that a portion of their sales goes to your nonprofit.

Here’s one such real estate business, who is also a client of ProActive Content, that partners with a local nonprofit.

Also – don’t neglect online and ecommerce businesses.

 

Step 2: Prepare Your Presentation

When a business agrees to discuss the idea of asking their customers to donate to your nonprofit at checkout, you’ll need a presentation ready to go. Here are few points to include when you speak to the owner or decision-maker:

Data

Use the data from Part 1 of this series to help. Or, go look directly at the study (PDF).

It includes data about how donating at checkout also helps the business. For instance, 65% of consumers remember that last business that asked them to give. That leads to customer loyalty, the business version of a recurring donor. Use that in your presentation.

 

Missional Impact

Also, your presentation should show the business owner the difference they can make by helping your nonprofit achieve its mission. For this part, speak to them just like you would a donor. Focus on the impact of what their support will achieve.

Next, tell them about giving options, of which there are a few.

 

Giving Options – In Store

For in-person transactions with a cashier or a card-reader, you can ask for a specific dollar amount to be added on to the customer’s bill. The most common amount is $1. You can try up to $2 if you want, but for most retail businesses, the study suggests not going above that. Consider asking for an odd amount that you can somehow tie to your mission, like $1.64, or $0.98. That will get their attention more than just a dollar.

The other option for in-person donations is to round up their transaction amount to the nearest dollar. So if their purchase cost $25.37, the final bill would round up to $26.00.

Both these approaches are fast and easy – a critical component of this type of fundraising.

 

Giving Options – Online Business

If it’s an online business, there are plugins that allow the business to ask for donations to your nonprofit at checkout. For businesses using WooCommerce, for example, here’s their donation extension.

These plugins allow you to use the round up option and the fixed dollar amount option. But, they can also use a giving array option, where the customer is given several options for how much to give. And you can include an open field, where they can give any amount they want.

This customization makes online businesses a terrific option you should consider for businesses that might partner with your nonprofit. Plus, fewer nonprofits are reaching out to online businesses at this time, so you will have little competition.

 

Step 3: Contact Business Leadership

However you found out about this business, use those connections, relationships, or the missional alignment to contact the owner or leadership, and ask to speak with them.

 

Step 4: Follow Up Until You Get an Answer – Be Persistent

Business owners are busy, like everyone else. Don’t give up after just one try. Until they tell you flatly that they are not interested, keep pursuing them as long as you think it’s a good match.

 

Step 5: Send a Thank You Note

After you have your meeting, send a thank you note, regardless of if they have agreed to partner with your nonprofit. This keeps the door open for future communications. Maybe they can be an event sponsor one day, or a source of volunteers.

The next three steps concern what happens after you begin your partnership with a business.

 

Step 6: Supply Your Business Partner with Messaging Materials

If it’s a brick and mortar store, send them a pack of small fliers or other brochures. With these, if customers ask what the charity is about, the store’s employees will have something to point them to, rather than remembering some pitch they don’t want to think about or recite dozens of times per day.

On this flier, include the URL for a unique landing page so you can track how many people visit it and know what kind of engagement your campaign is receiving.

For online retailers, this is tougher because they will not want the customer clicking away from their checkout page to view your landing page. So you may need to supply a short blurb that explains the impact of the customer’s donation. The online business may or may not be able to fit that on the page.

But, you can also ask to add the link to your landing page on their thank you page – after the customer has completed their purchase.

 

Step 7: Follow Up – Stay Connected

Don’t neglect this relationship! It could end up being worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars (or millions, for national organizations).

Ask them how customers are reacting to being asked to donate to your nonprofit. Ask how the employees feel about it. Share your data with them and ask if you can modify the campaign.

And as Dipjar recommends, send in ‘mystery shoppers’ to see how (or IF) the store’s employees are asking for donations when customers check out.

 

Step 8: Track Your Data

Here’s the minimal data you’ll want to know:

  • Number of donations per month
  • Average donation size (if applicable, such as an online retailer)
  • Total dollar amount of donations per month (per store, if applicable)
  • Number of visitors to your unique landing page (if you’re using a flier)

 

Optional Step 9: Create a Checkout Donor Capture Campaign

Lastly, here’s what I was referring to earlier when I said there’s a way to reach these in-store donors and try to capture them into your nonprofit’s other marketing and fundraising systems.

This works especially if you are partnering with a brick and mortar business. Here’s the idea:

If it’s a local store, then the customers are likely going to be local too, unless it’s a tourist town or tourist-focused business. With local customers, you can start running social media ads that are hyper-located to just a few mile radius around the store you have partnered with.

In those ads, offer a chance to get involved with or donate to your nonprofit.

Why might this work? Because the study revealed that customers donating at checkout like being asked, felt good about your nonprofit, AND remembered you.

If you can get your ads to show up on the social media feeds for people in that local area around the store, anyone who donated in the store will remember you! They will therefore be more likely to click on your ad than they would a generic nonprofit ad.

With greater budget, you could also send a localized direct mail campaign, and even mention the store in the campaign as a way for people to donate. You might even get the business to share some of the costs, since you would now be doing their marketing for them.

 

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