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The Upper Room Tiered Partner Programme
Developing a clearer proposition for corporate partners
The Upper Room
Context / Challenge
A corporate partnerships brochure and tiered partnership proposition I developed while working as Corporate Partnerships Manager at The Upper Room, a London charity.
I joined as the sole corporate partnerships hire at a point where there was no established pipeline, clear partnership proposition or dedicated set of materials for approaching businesses.
Before meaningful outreach could happen, prospective partners needed a clearer understanding of the organisation, what it did and how a corporate relationship could work.
Insight
I spent the early part of the role understanding The Upper Room's services, priorities and existing relationships before deciding what should be presented externally.
The challenge was not simply producing a brochure. It was turning the organisation's work into a proposition that businesses could understand and respond to.
Strategy
The project involved developing a clearer corporate partnership offer and translating it into an external facing brochure that could support outreach and partnership conversations.
I created a Bronze, Silver and Gold structure to give prospective partners defined ways to engage with the charity rather than presenting corporate support as an open ended request.
Idea
Execution
As Corporate Partnerships Manager, I led the development of the partnership structure and created the brochure and supporting outreach materials.
I also used the materials as part of wider prospecting activity through direct outreach, networking and external events.
I started by learning how the charity worked and what it could realistically offer corporate partners.
From there, I organised the offer into three partnership levels and developed the information businesses would need to understand the organisation, available opportunities and potential ways to engage.
The brochure was then designed as a practical business development tool rather than simply a piece of promotional material.
- Understanding the charity's services and existing corporate offer
- Defining the partnership proposition
- Creating Bronze, Silver and Gold engagement levels
- Structuring the information for prospective partners
- Writing and designing the corporate partnerships brochure
- Creating supporting outreach materials
- Using the brochure during prospecting and partnership conversations
- Managing prospect activity through Beacon CRM
- Three tier corporate partnership structure
- Corporate partnerships brochure
- Partner facing messaging and outreach materials
- Reusable asset for future partnership conversations
Impact
The brochure gave The Upper Room a clearer corporate proposition and a dedicated asset that could be used consistently during outreach.
The wider business development activity supported by the new materials resulted in one long term corporate partner being secured during my time in the role, alongside a broader pipeline of prospective relationships.
The project showed me that creating a strong external document starts with understanding the organisation behind it.
The most important part was not the design itself, but deciding what information mattered to a potential partner and turning an unclear offer into something easier to understand and act on.