here - Tamarack CCI

Step 4: Articulate How You Can Help Business Realize its Objectives
In Step 3, you identified why businesses might be interested in collaborating with you, and how
their participation might align with their corporate goals. It can also be helpful to articulate how
you can enhance the probability that those goals will be advanced.
Businesses have identified the following as the things they value about the non-profit sector:
Specialized information about and connections to communities –
Once a business has decided to become engaged in a collaboration for
social transformation, it will be eager to ensure that its efforts are
organized in a way to produce maximum impact. To do that, it has to
make sure that it has a strong understanding of the situation of the
people the business hopes to help. The non-profit sector has that
knowledge. Your non-profit may focus its efforts on particular inner
city neighbourhoods. Or it may be directed at certain demographic
groups such as recent immigrants, aboriginal people, victims of
domestic violence, or consumers of mental health services. Whatever
that focus is, you have an understanding of the sector that will be
invaluable to the business sector in planning its own involvement.
Community trust – A company wishing to locate in a particular community can face resistance
for a variety of reasons. Collaborating with one or more non-profit or community groups on
aspects of their initiative can increase the community’s trust in the company, and reduce the
possibility of opposition to the company’s plans.
Conduit for public or foundation funding – When a business becomes engaged in an initiative
for social transformation, it may face costs beyond what it can afford to pay. If, for example, it
agrees to hire a certain number of people who are below the skill level the business typically
requires, the cost to the business of training the individuals may be prohibitive. Businesses
typically don’t have access to foundation or government funding to pay for such costs. A
business would value a relationship whereby the non-profit would raise some of the funds
required to make the job seekers ready for employment, and the business would make the
commitment to hire the individuals once they have completed their training.
Providing access to clients and markets – By working with the non-profit sector, tapping into
their resources and networks of client groups, business is given the chance to connect with
people whom they might not usually access. Not only does business benefit, but non-profit
clients gain access to better products and services, tailored to meet their specific needs.
Helping aggregate demand – When a business decides to develop a product or service to meet a
community need, non-profit organizations are often able to animate or organize the community
to take advantage of it. A financial institution in Winnipeg, for example, that developed an
account specifically to address the needs of people using fringe financial services, was able to
attract hundreds of new account holders by referral from a few select non-profit organizations
who were already working with the client group. Elsewhere in this resource we have described
Collaborating with Business for Social Transformation
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