How Top Fundraisers Succeed: Making a Corporate Partnership Work

The problem: Some fundraisers fail to think enough about what a company requires to achieve its business, image, and social-responsibility goals, says Lynn Croneberger, chief executive of SOS Children’s Villages.

The solution: “The most critical thing when working with corporate partners is to remember that our job is not to sell our charity to an organization—we’re not sales people,” she says. “Our job is to find out what the corporation cares about, then help them expand their footprint in that area.”

The payoff: SOS Children’s Villages raises $45-million a year from companies. It won $2-million in the past decade from Johnson & Johnson by showing how it could meet the company’s goal of attracting more people to the nursing profession, especially in poor countries. That money pays for the group to provide vocational training to people who live in impoverished regions.

“Once we were able to determine that we shared a passion and interest, Johnson & Johnson began providing support to our villages around the world where they have offices and live and work,” she says. “They’re now sponsoring a nursing scholarship program in Ethiopia.”