CashBack November Portfolio day

1. What Do Commercial Partners
Look For?
Sandy MacDonald, Standard Life
28 November 2014

2. 2
Successful partnerships…
• Compatibility - alignment and shared goals
• Good, honest communication and relationship management
• That extra something special?

3. Programme Funding
Our application criteria and process
Basic consideration criteria
• Real Jobs
• Living Wage
• Development of Real Skills/
Improving Attainment
• Servicing the needs of hardest-to-reach
• Addressing barriers to employment
for specific groups
Output and impact
• Opportunity for SL employee
involvement
• Scale and national reach
• Commitment to work in partnership
with SL and other charity partners
• Uniqueness/innovation
• Return on Investment
• Social impact
Cultural fit and relationship
development
• Cultural and organisational
alignment with Standard Life
• Engagement with SL people, senior
leaders and SLCT Board
• Wider activity to enhance SL Brand
• Direct fit with wider ‘Building More
Prosperous Futures’ pipeline
3
Minimum entry criteria
Due diligence process
Maximise partnership

4. 4
Jump2It
• Met our focus on financial capability and employability, and a shared desire to
build more prosperous futures
• AND a link to our sponsorship (at the time) of British Basketball
• Opportunities for media coverage, positive brand and reputational benefits (with
local community, government, customers and general public)
• Opportunities for our people to get involved in an easy and engaging way
• Some added nice touches…

5. 5
Future – Direction of Travel
A few considerations
• Corporate hospitality, etc increasingly difficult due to bribery and corruption
legislation
• Strategic alignment, added value and a long-term view ever more important
(“sustainability”/responsible business, rather than corporate philanthropy)
• This also means budgets can be more complex – multiple stakeholders involved
in making decisions
• Evidence and impact measurement expectations increasing – scrutiny and
reporting

6. 6
And finally…
If you only do 3 things:
• Investigate and understand funder’s key criteria and decision-making process
• What do you bring? (Simple, clear and compelling)
• Open, pro-active, two-way communication