There are many opportunities for businesses to sponsor the charity in a way that will be beneficial to your business. See the options below for further details.

Licensing agreements
Africa Foundation can give your company a licence to use the charity’s name and or/logo in selling a product or service. The company will promote sales of the product with a promise to the consumer that the charity will benefit financially from the sales of that product. Such promotions will usually act as a buying incentive to the consumer and so help to boost sales of that product.
A wide range of commercial products, the best-known being Christmas cards, is commonly marketed under this type of agreement. The charity typically takes no active part in the product marketing – it is simply selling to the company, in return for payments, a limited right to the use of the charity name.

Joint promotional agreements
In this type of agreement the image of the charity plays an integral part in the marketing of the company’s image, product or service. This is the basis of cause-related marketing. The agreement often envisages the building up of a long-term relationship between the charity and the company. The company’s aim is to build an image of it as a socially responsible organisation. It seeks to achieve this by creating, through marketing and publicity, a link in people’s minds between itself and the cause the charity represents. Its underlying aim is still, of course, to improve its financial performance for shareholders. The benefits for the charity might again include sales-linked payments from specific promotions, but it also hopes to benefit from the raised awareness of itself, its work and its funding needs that can result from increased exposure in the media. As part of the agreement the charity might also receive specified benefits in kind – goods, services, facilities or expertise provided to it by the company.

Sponsorship agreements
Under this type of agreement a company is in effect paying a charity to publicise the company and the fact that it has contributed to the charity. The company agrees to meet some or all of the costs of, for instance, one of the charity’s publications, fund-raising events or projects. In return the charity will publicly acknowledge the company’s contribution. The company again hopes that its visible association with, and financial support for, a charitable cause will improve its image, or promote and sell its products. The charity benefits from the sponsorship payments and, it hopes, from increased exposure of its name and cause in the company’s own advertising of its support for the charity.