Guide Dogs

 

The Brief

Peel was asked by Guide Dogs' Fundraising Director to work with the Corporate Partnerships Team over a nine-month period, providing a blend of strategic and day-to-day, hands-on support, including:

 

• Account Management

• New business development

• Mentoring, coaching and on-going support

 

The impact of our support

• Clarity re. the team’s overall approach to identifying, winning and developing corporate relationships.

• Improvements to the internal and external environments for corporate fundraising - e.g. the key strengths and weaknesses of the current approach; culture and behaviours; ‘pressure points’/political issues to be addressed etc.  

• Recommendations that informed a new strategic approach.

• Hands-on, day-to-day support with managing existing corporate relationships.

• Creative input, leading to an improved new business development process – helping to identify and develop impactful new projects and packages for existing and new corporate partners.

• Acting as an adviser and mentor/coach to the Corporate Partnerships Manager.

• Considerable work was done on the strategy, including a thorough strategic review of the charity’s approach to corporate fundraising and the reasons for past under-performance. A three-year plan was subsequently developed for the Corporate Fundraising Team.

• A positive impact on new business and income levels. Guide Dogs saw an expanding portfolio of blue-chip company partners, and a four-fold increase in income, despite the challenging economic climate.

• We also identified that the key issue had shifted from being a lack of new business and ‘pipeline’ to one of under-capacity. With account activity increasing significantly, and reduced team capacity, the team was suddenly managing a far heavier workload and ‘fire fighting’ – with little time left over for new business development, planning and internal bridge-building. We identified that a ‘tipping point’ had been reached, where further investment needed to be made in the team to ensure its longer term success and sustainability.