28 November 2014

What Do Commercial Partners

Look For?Sandy MacDonald, Standard Life

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Successful partnerships…

• Compatibility - alignment and shared goals

• Good, honest communication and relationship management

• That extra something special?

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

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Minimum entry criteria

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Due diligence process

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Maximise partnership

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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…

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Future – Direction of TravelA 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

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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