💡Key Insight
- When partnering with a charity for an event, your business must legally protect its intellectual property and brand usage rights by formalising how logos and promotional materials will be used to prevent misuse during joint marketing efforts.
- Collaborating with a charity typically involves sharing sensitive business information, so having a non-disclosure agreement in place helps ensure confidentiality and safeguards customer data and internal insights.
- In business-charity event partnerships, it is important to align expectations around profit and purpose, as charities focus on fundraising while your business should view the event as a promotional and networking opportunity rather than a direct revenue stream.
- Choosing a charity whose mission aligns with your business values improves event authenticity and audience engagement, helping reinforce your brand’s social responsibility and community impact.
Partnering with a charity for an event is a great way to promote your business. However, there are many legal things you need to consider. In this article, we’ll discuss what you need to be mindful of when collaborating with a charity to run an event.
When you’re advertising the event
There are many tips on how to effectively advertise an event to maximise the turn out of it. These can include:
- Making the event something that people will want to attend. Incentives such as prizes, special offers and even refreshments will motivate guests to attend your event.
- Run a social media campaign which informs your customers about your event
- Send reminder emails about your event up to the day of the event
Intellectual property
When running an event in collaboration with another organisation, you should always make sure you’ve legally protected your intellectual property. The organisation you’re partnering with will likely use your business’s logo and name to promote the event, and it’s important to make sure it’s only used in a way you consent to. You’ll be able to enforce your rights over your business’s property by registering a trademark. Further, you can licence your intellectual property to the charity to use.
Sharing information
It’s also highly likely that you’ll be sharing information about your business with the organisation you’re working with. A lot of this information may be sensitive, such as customer details and marketing reports. To ensure that your information stays confidential, it’s worth having a non-disclosure agreement in place.
Meeting the interests of both organisers
Though you’re a business who needs to make money to make a profit, a charity’s main concern is to raise money for their cause. You should treat this event as a networking and promotion effort rather than an opportunity to make bank.
Also consider that attendees will generally be under the impression that the event is not-for-profit, and if that is how it is being advertised, that’s how it should be run.
Use this event as a way to show the people in attendance that you and your business promote noble values. As a result, attendees may be more likely to give your business a chance and help grow your customer base.
Choosing your partner
Partnering with a charity whose objectives align with your business is essential in making sure the event is successful. The Australian Charities and Not-For-Profit Commission has a search tool that allows you to search for organisations by location, name and who they help.
Conclusion
Partnering with a charity for an event should be a joyous and exciting venture, not stressful. Therefore, you can always speak with a lawyer for more clarification if you have any questions or queries about your event.
