Sarah Henderson explains how a partnership with Home Retail Group is enabling Teenage Cancer Trust to give something back to the local communities in which it fundraises
2010 was a momentous year for Teenage Cancer Trust. As well as celebrating the 20th anniversary of first specialist unit, and the tenth anniversary of ‘Concerts for Teenage Cancer Trust’ at the Royal Albert Hall, the charity won its biggest ever corporate fundraising partnership, with Home Retail Group, and established new relationships with other key fundraising partners.
Regional fundraising remains Teenage Cancer Trust’s largest source of revenue, closely followed by income from corporate partnerships. Such partnerships are at the heart of our fundraising strategy, so we work hard to ensure that they are fully integrated, embedded and optimised across the organisation. As a result, most of the major corporate partnerships are cross-functional – embracing events, regional fundraising, celebrity and major donor functions.
In good company
The growth of corporate fundraising income is integral to the delivery of our long-term service development strategy. Investment in business development and account management functions over the past three years has enabled us to grow our year-on-year income from companies. We are now consolidating and building upon our reputation as an attractive partner for a wide range of corporates. The companies we seek to attract tend to look for a locally and nationally focused charity, which has an emotive, media-worthy message and broad appeal to staff and customers.
Dune has been a partner since 2007 and predominately supports the charity through client-relationship (CRM) management activities – for example, selling limited edition jewellery. This has included necklaces and a ring, which was modeled by an ex patient, who received treatment on a Teenage Cancer Trust ward.
TOPMAN has recently begun a three-year fundraising partnership with us and hopes to raise £500,000 through staff fundraising and product sales. One example is its involvement with our one-day fundraising event, Rock Your Shades. Here, we have teamed up with four of our young patients to design some sunglasses, which will be sold in TOPMAN store. The sunglasses will cost £15 each, with five pounds from every pair sold donated to Teenage Cancer Trust.
Global investment bank Nomura, also supports Teenage Cancer Trust as its London charity. This two-year partnership has raised almost £1m. Over 4,000 of its London employees have participated in bespoke treks and challenges. Funds raised by Nomura will go towards nine specialist treatment pods on a new Teenage Cancer Trust day care unit at UniversityCollegeHospital, which is due to open next year.
Welcome Home
Home Retail Group came on board after an impassioned pitch to the charity selection panel. The owner of Argos and Homebase saw Teenage Cancer Trust through the first round of pitches, before putting the partnership decision to a colleague vote.
Home has 53,000 colleagues and Teenage Cancer Trust secured a third of the total votes, based on an effective communications strategy, which included a poster campaign, increasing traffic to the website and social networking on Facebook.
For us, this partnership needs to extend beyond monetary gains. While it’s on course to reach its £2.5m target (having raised £1million in eight months) it’s also an opportunity to take Teenage Cancer Trust’s brand awareness to another level. Since the partnership launched, the charity has been in regular communication with the Group’s staff and more than 200 million customers across the UK and Ireland.
The ask
Home Retail Group’s brief focused on local fundraising for local communities. The ask from Teenage Cancer Trust was simple: help the charity build more specialist home-from-home units for young people with cancer. The units are fundamental to our aim of treating youngsters with other sufferers in the same age bracket, in a comfortable environment, so that they do not feel isolated.
The units are bright and vibrant and often include pool tables, jukeboxes, game consoles, computers and webcams, ensuring that teenagers can keep in touch with family and friends outside the hospital. Their homely feel helps create a sense of normality for our patients. It was the uniqueness of these units and Home Retail Group’s market leadership in several home enhancement product areas that brought about an instant connection between the two organisations.
Management buy-in across the Group was critical from the outset. Every Argos and Homebase store, contact centre, distribution centre and central management site was matched to an existing Teenage Cancer Trust unit, or an area where one is due to be built. This local linking has helped bring the cause alive by demonstrating the impact the charity can have in the communities where staff and customers live and work.
The partnership coincided with the launch of the 74th Argos catalogue. This provided Teenage Cancer Trust with an opportunity to engage with volunteers on a national scale across the UK. Nearly two thirds of the UK population have an Argos catalogue in their homes, meaning lots of anticipated footfall for the launch weekend. This gave us the chance to create a new volunteer engagement strategy, recruiting new supporters to bucket collect in Argos stores. More than 550 Teenage Cancer Trust volunteers raised almost £50,000 during the catalogue launch weekend.
Community links
Home Retail Group is also striving to be a market leader in the creation of volunteering opportunities for colleagues within their local communities. It is currently trialing a patient and family support scheme where colleagues assist our patients with small home and garden improvements.
Direct support is also provided to young patients who have missed out on vocational aspects of their education because of treatment, with Home Retail Group providing opportunities for CV and interview support services, as well as work experience in the retail sector.
Tying into the corporate responsibility objective, Teenage Cancer Trust has set-up a Home Retail Group Young Ambassadors scheme so that former and current cancer patients can support the partnership. Opportunities have included recording in-store radio adverts, talking at staff conferences and head office events, opening new or refurbished Argos stores, and taking part in product focus groups to ensure Argos continues to be relevant to its target age demographic.
With Argos and Homebase colleagues regularly holding traditional fundraising events, the partnership leaders have been able to develop unique cause-related marketing initiatives. One high-profile example is Argos’ recent involvement in the UK launch of ‘Facebook Deals’. Through the site’s ‘Charity Deals’, Argos customers have an opportunity to donate one pound to Teenage Cancer Trust, for the first 10,000 mobile Facebook check-ins at any UK Argos store.
Seasonal products have also been sold in-store. This has included novelty Reindeer Food in the run-up to Christmas.
Last year’s mass participation fundraiser, ‘Get Wiggy With It’, saw colleagues across the business donning outrageous wigs for the day, donating one pound in return. This launched with an executive engagement strategy, which included a photo poster campaign with Home’s board members joining in with the fun. The campaign raised £60,000 and will return again later this year.
“Without doubt this partnership has already exceeded our expectations,” says Simon Davies, chief executive of Teenage Cancer Trust. “Home Retail Group colleagues have done a great job in supporting our vision that every young person diagnosed with cancer gets the opportunity to have access to specialist support and care.”
The corporate perspective
Ceri Wootton, community affairs and workplace manager for Home Retail Group, says: “This is only our second Group-wide charity partnership, so we knew it was not going to be an easy ride for Teenage Cancer Trust to engage colleagues and customers on the scale we do business. We also knew that we were partnering with a charity that operates in a highly competitive area of charitable giving. In this context, we are proud and delighted with the progress made to date. Aside from the money raised, Teenage Cancer Trust has delivered on the brief to ensure our colleagues and customers know that money raised locally, stays local, where practical. I believe the key to the partnership success is that people can see the impact our fundraising has on the community. While signed on for two years, Home Retail Group is committed to providing a lasting legacy for the partnership that continues beyond the end of our front-line national fundraising support. We’ll be exploring how best to achieve this during the second year of the partnership. We want to ensure that Home Retail Group continues to support Teenage Cancer Trust’s goal of ensuring all young people battling cancer in this country receive the appropriate care.”
Three partnership lessons learnt by Teenage Cancer Trust
- Your business development time is most wisely spent exploring your existing links and networks through trustees, committee members and individual donors.
- Plan your approaches. Always work out your key synergies with a company and the value you can bring to them before making the approach;
- Persevere. The biggest partnerships in the sector may take to three to five years to nurture, before you win them.
Sarah Henderson is media relations manager at Teenage Cancer Trust
