How Tommy's grew a loyal community of small business supporters.
Sales fundraising has really helped us to transform how we work with small businesses. As charities we love steady, reliable, sustainable income.
Rosie Leverton - Head of Corporate Partnerships at Tommy’s
About Tommy's
Tommy's are the UK's leading baby loss charity, funding research into stillbirth, premature birth and miscarriage. They also provide research-based pregnancy information to parents throughout their pregnancy journey, from pre-conception through to post-birth.
The challenge
The corporate fundraising team were finding it increasingly difficult to manage sales fundraising enquiries from potential small business supporters.
In particular, using traditional Commercial Participation Agreements (CPAs), to fulfil the legal requirements with multiple small businesses was impractical. Leading to frustrating conversations with prospective long-term supporters.
“We are fortunate to have an increasing number of small businesses that want to support Tommy’s, and we’re incredibly grateful! However we are a small team, and as this number grows it becomes increasingly difficult in both time and resource to manage the initial enquiry, follow up, administration and set up of so many partnerships on this level.”
Rosie Leverton - Head of Corporate Partnerships at Tommy’s
The CPA solution
Tommy's needed a simple and quick CPA solution to offer their supporters, so they turned to Work for Good for help. Our digital CPA solution enabled Tommy's to accept donations of any size, streamline their stewardship of business supporters and save time on admin. Small businesses can now donate to the charity easily and quickly, without the legal hassle.
Businesses create their Commercial Participation Agreement when they set up their fundraising campaign via the form below.
Click to view enlarged image here.
“We knew we needed to treat this community with slightly more thought than a general community supporter. If someone comes to us saying that they can donate we are able to pass them to Work for Good and know that they’ll be cared for really well and we can also manage that process so much more efficiently on our end.”
Rosie Leverton - Head of Corporate Partnerships at Tommy’s
The results
Using Work for Good to take care of the CPA, ensures Tommy's never has to turn away support from small businesses, allowing the charity to raise more funds and increase their income.
By offering businesses a simple way to support them, Tommy's has raised thousands of pounds, which may have been otherwise turned away due to lack of capacity and resource.
Furthermore Tommy's has developed loyal relationships by ensuring their cohort of small business supporters feel valued - from emailing their supporters with impact reports to championing them on social media.
We know that if we give these businesses a great experience, they’re going to tell other people in this community and often when one business shares that they’re supporting Tommy’s, we will see an influx of other businesses getting in touch.
Rosie Leverton - Head of Corporate Partnerships at Tommy’s
Charity champions
Small businesses can help charities not just by raising money via their sales but also by using their own platforms to raise awareness and help the charity reach new audiences, Pattie & Co, an ethical brand selling products for babies is a long term sales fundraising supporter of Tommy’s. They donate 10% of the sale of every blanket to the charity. Cat Price (right), founder of Pattie & Co, chose to raise funds for Tommy’s after complications during her own pregnancy. She raises awareness of the charity through her website and across her social media.
So far Cat and her customers have raised over £16,000 for Tommy’s.
Sales fundraising comes in all sizes
Plum & Ashby launched a candle for Baby Loss Awareness Week. With support of UK influencers, they reached thousands of people via social media, raising awareness of baby loss, and over £34,000 for Tommy’s.
West London Pick & Mix' have been raising funds for Tommy’s through sales of their confectionary since January 2021. So far they have raised over £720.