So how does it work in practice?
Our Advisory team worked with a community farm in Bristol, called the Lawrence Weston Community Farm, to develop its corporate donor strategy through a partnership with Lloyd’s Bank Foundation. Lloyd’s had supported the farm with a grant over three years and as part of that support they also funded our work.
The Farm had already identified the need to generate more income from corporate partnerships. Like many small charities, they had found obtaining grants increasingly difficult. As General Manager Paul Jayson told us: “there are more charities springing up every year and there is less grant funding available”.
We worked closely with the charity over a two month period to develop a bespoke plan to support its development and longevity.
The charity has already implemented several of CAF’s suggestions. One of which was to expand their offer to corporate groups to come down and volunteer. “We’ve introduced a range of new activities to these groups” Paul explains, “we can now go to corporate groups with a product and say this will help you deliver your CSR objectives, we’d like you to engage in it – and they have”.