Agenda & Post-Conference WorkShops

Chris and Brad will set the stage for the day!

Cause sponsorship is arguably the most transactional approach to corporate partnerships. Transactional, however, does not mean simple and it certainly does not mean that sponsorship starts and ends with logo placement and photo opportunities with oversized cheques.

The best sponsorship campaigns are overtly focused on marketing, sales and experiences. At its best, sponsorship offers a way for brands, causes and their shared audiences to connect in meaningful ways. Sponsorship is a $2 billion/year industry in Canada.  The market is a growing one and both charities and brands need to understand the vast potential of this space.

In this session, cause sponsorship expert Chris Baylis will uncover best practices for charities and brands to engage their audiences, move past simple logo placement and take part in one of the fastest growing forms of marketing in Canada.

The bar for social change has been raised. However, most corporations are not prepared for what is quickly becoming a radically new landscape. Many remain entrenched in an outdated model of corporate social responsibility which does not deliver adequate business or social impact. In this session, you will learn a new vision for how corporations can move past ineffectual CSR and become social change leaders. We will address key questions, including;

• What is the new role of business in society?
• To what degree are employees, customers, regulators and investors making decisions based on the social impact of corporations? Can social change be monetized?
• Are partnerships between corporations and non-profit organizations in danger of becoming obsolete?

By addressing these questions, we will establish why social change is the new bottom-line.

Keurig Dr Pepper Canada has long understood that the journey of our morning coffee begins in the fields of producing countries. This is why the company stays profoundly connected to coffee farmers around the globe, and is committed to offering truly great coffee that promotes the greater good. This, to enable farmers to live better and healthier lives and farmlands to prosper each and every season, so coffee can thrive for generations to come. Keurig Dr Pepper has challenged itself to improving the lives of 1 million people in coffee communities, and is committed to 100% sustainable, responsible and ethical sourcing. This session will take you on a journey into the world of coffee, and will address how collaboration and partnerships are key to achieve such ambitious sustainability goals.

One of the fundamental assumptions about the business impact of employee-focused CSR (what we call “Goodness”) programs has been that participation in workplace giving and volunteering helps reduce employee turnover, but there’s been little firm data to support this hypothesis—that is, until now. This session will take you through the findings of the Benevity Engagement Study, an analysis of the giving and volunteering behavior of over 2M employees from 118 companies, and provide insights on how this data can be used to show the business value of your programs, how two companies are already seeing results, and how you can build the business case for a new approach to CSR within your own company.

Key Takeaways

• Adopting an employee-centric approach to your CSR program can save your company hundreds of thousands of dollars in churn costs annually.
• Open-choice programs encourage greater participation than when a company restricts donations to a single charity or short list of organizations.

If a message can’t be communicated with impact in seven seconds or less, it is likely to go unnoticed. In other words, communicating a simple engaging emotion is a deal breaker. To that end, Mark will draw examples from Canada’s Children’s Hospital Foundations (CCHF) and other organizations and provide insight into important questions like: 

• How long do you have for your cause message to catch the attention of your audience
• How to create new value propositions that will rally employees and customers of corporate partners
• How do you measure and articulate the impact of your partnerships
• How to build engaging and impactful cause partnerships
• How to balance simplicity and complexity, the story of impact and impact measurement

Each and every day, more corporations are waking up to good things in the world.  Good that will help make the world a better place.  But with all the good that is being done, is it actually doing any good?  In this session, we will explore the one good thing companies would like to do better.  How?  Well, leading up to the conference, we’ll ask attendees to pick what they want to focus on — for example, issue advocacy or storytelling or customer and employee engagement — and based on the results, we’ll then focus the session on sharing 2-3 case studies of how corporations are addressing that very challenge.  Plus, we’ll challenge each other in the room to come up with new ideas on how to do good, better.  

​Partnership “Un-plugged” with CIBC

An open mic Q&A session with CIBC Sponsorship & Community Investment professionals to discuss best practices in corporate sponsorship and how to build successful, mutually beneficial sponsorships programs and campaigns.

The strongest and most sustainable company and charity partnerships are about more than just cheque writing. Value creation is at the heart of a successful partnership. For charities, it means advancing your mission by leveraging ALL a partner’s potential resources including expertise, thought leadership, talent, and innovation. For companies, a well-shaped and strategic charitable partnership will enhance your employee engagement, build brand affinity, improve customer loyalty, attract new customers, and strengthen brand reputation. TELUS is one prominent Canadian brand leading the way in promoting robust and value aligned partnerships through its Friendly Future Foundation. Learn how as Shelley facilitates a lively discussion with Shannon Gorman, National Director of Community Affairs for TELUS and Basile Papaevangelou, Founder of TELUS partner, Kids’ Health Links Foundation.

​The last decade has witnessed some profound changes the way that Canadian corporations invest in the community. More changes are anticipated over the next ten years. Many corporations rely on the support of sector organizations to understand and adapt to this new world.

Canopy is a partnership of the organizations that help corporations navigate through the complex waters of community investment, corporate social responsibility and employee engagement.  In this session, we will explore what these organizations have learned over the last decade and what we can expect over the next one. We will also explore how the organizations within Canopy work together to foster an environment that supports broader corporate engagement.

Canopy is comprised of the following organizations:

Canadian Business for Social Responsibility (CBSR)
Conference Board of Canada
Imagine Canada
LBG Canada
Social Innovation @MaRS
Mount Royal University
Realized Worth
St. Michael’s Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Certificate
Volunteer Canada

Strong cause marketing programs and not-for-profit partnerships are more necessary than ever for corporations. Cause marketing has become the norm. If you are not doing cause marketing or you’re doing a poor job at it, rewards are being left on the table.

Some questions that Jessica will explore include:

• Will Canadians change purchases based on corporate/charity support?
• Which industry do Canadians expect to give the most to charity?
• Which brands are considered the most charitable?
• How does this change for each generation?

In this session, Jessica Avery, Vice President, Canada, Ipsos Marketing will share the latest results of the annual Ipsos Marketing survey focused on what Canadians expect from corporations and how they should interact with the charitable sector

Companies and causes need a new relationship, given consumers’ and employees’ increasing expectations for and trust in brands to take on social impact. However, the way in which the two work together has not sufficiently evolved: each side needs to step up and make it easier for the other to create seamless platforms, campaigns, and programs for mutual benefit. Impactful corporate-cause partnerships require a new starting point, a new approach to engagement and a long-term commitment to measurable change. Phillip will outline steps to achieve better partnerships leveraging experiences working with many companies and charities over the past several years.  

The most important change we are seeing in the volunteering space is the shift beyond painting fences and sorting food, to opportunities that meaningfully leverage the skills of the volunteers and create value for the organization. Rather than put pressure on nonprofits to provide volunteer activities for hundreds or thousands of employees on one day, companies and nonprofits must look for new and more meaningful ways to work together with a focused effort on mutual impact and benefit. The benefits of this for both parties are clear, but it’s tougher to implement than many initially think.

 In this session, corporate responsibility expert Sarah Chapman will share key trends and insights on the evolution of employee volunteering programs, focusing on tangible tips and takeaways for both companies and nonprofits to enhance and build meaningful partnerships.

In this half day session, sponsorship expert Chris Baylis, along with data and fundraising guru Allen Davidov will teach you to turn more of your proposals into sales. You’ll learn to leverage the latest sponsorship trends to drive greater success for your organization and you will walk away with the tools, insights and confidence needed to demonstrate the value of your sponsorship opportunities.

In this session, we will cover the entire sponsorship process in detail with the goal of increasing your sponsorship sales:

• Prospecting and getting the meeting
• Valuation techniques, basic to advanced strategies
• Sponsorship packages that work
• Going beyond logo placement to create value
• Using sponsorship to improve participant experience
• Why constituent (demographic and psychographic) data is your most important asset (and what to do with it)
• Activation development: Building custom activations and engaging sponsors in the process

Key Learning Outcomes:

1. Learn how to get the meeting with sponsors and walk away with the sale
2. Learn the concepts of valuation and get a working valuation calculator!
3. Learn how to maximize data to build activation ideas that your sponsors and your audience will love
4. How to create a best in class sponsorship program