Corporate Fundraising Beyond the Grant
To build sustainable corporate partnerships, nonprofits need to understand a company’s business priorities, not just its giving program.
At ABM for Good, we help nonprofits move beyond broad appeals for corporate fundraising support to build longer-term collaborative partnerships with high-potential, best-fit companies. Our account-based marketing (ABM) approach, which targets specific companies with tailored outreach, begins with questions:
Which companies share our nonprofit’s priorities?
What business challenges are they trying to address that relate to our work?
Where could working together create meaningful value for both organizations?
What do corporate partners want from nonprofits?
With a deeper understanding of why specific companies might want to partner with a nonprofit, we can move beyond generic requests for sponsorships and grants toward more compelling proposals that speak to larger corporate priorities, needs, and long-term potential.
A recent announcement from Honda offers a useful example. Honda and the Honda USA Foundation opened their 2027 funding cycle, which highlights four award categories:
Advanced manufacturing workforce development
Environmental stewardship
Traffic safety
Mobility for people with disabilities
It is no surprise that all four connect directly to Honda’s business capabilities and long-term priorities. In addition, Honda’s announcement highlights the alignment of its grant programs with the company’s larger CSR vision.
Why should nonprofits look beyond corporate foundations?
Notably, the same executive at Honda Americas leads both CSR and the Foundation. CSR and social impact programs often provide opportunities for nonprofit support beyond corporate foundation grants. At ABM for Good, we encourage nonprofits to explore opportunities with CSR and other corporate functions. CSR and social impact teams often have their own resources and budgets – and potentially much to gain from nonprofit collaboration.
CSR and social impact leaders can also champion nonprofit collaboration with other corporate leaders, such as marketing (for brand visibility), communications (for reputation management), HR (for employee engagement), talent development (for skills building), and government or community relations (for community goodwill). Each business unit has its own agendas and capabilities that could benefit from the right kind of nonprofit partnership.
Corporate marketing teams as nonprofit partners
For many nonprofits, building awareness and interest is a top priority. A new Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy/Ipsos survey highlights the extent of the challenge: Only about 7% of Americans recognize using nonprofit services even as nearly 72% report participating in activities typically provided by nonprofits.
This is a remarkable awareness gap, but also a substantial opportunity for corporate-nonprofit collaboration. For nonprofits, tapping into the resources and skills of corporate marketing and communication teams opens a wide range of opportunities to build greater awareness of their mission, programs, and impact through targeted campaigns, media and social media, events, and influencer connections.
At the same time, mission-aligned companies gain another way to demonstrate their social impact commitments to customers, investors, community leaders, and employees. Our recent conversations with social impact leads and marketers reveal that CSR and marketing (including ABM programs) often operate in their own corporate silos with neither function taking full advantage of their colleagues’ initiatives and capabilities.
How can nonprofits identify best-fit corporate partners?
Researching potential corporate partners means looking beyond their charitable giving and annual grant cycles. Development directors who are stretched for resources can use AI as a partner for this task. Start by analyzing:
Each company’s mission statement, business priorities, and CSR goals
Mission alignment between nonprofit and company
Reputational compatibility between nonprofit and company – are there any that need to be excluded?
Each company’s funding and/or partnership capacity – beyond financial support to in-kind, skills, technical, or other support
Access and entry points to each company (e.g., through staff board members, current partners, associations, and other networks)
Understanding a company's broader business priorities and a broader set of potentially interested leaders – and identifying where your mission can help advance them – opens the door to a wider set of potential supporters and more creative, mutually beneficial, and sustainable partnerships.
Interested in learning more about building more collaborative corporate partnerships? Contact us
Note: AI helped the humans at ABM for Good edit this article.