We partner with a wide range of businesses to create and achieve shared goals, driving both of our strategic aims.
Our partners work with us to align with environmental objectives, focus on employee health and wellbeing, and directly impact the communities in which they operate. All of our partners understand how important canals are for nature and people and are proud to help us keep canals alive.
We have experience in delivering successful multi-year strategic partnerships with businesses from a range of sectors. Our partnerships can be about so much more than a donation to support our work.
How does it work?
Our partnerships with businesses vary in their size and scope. We’ll work with you to design something that works for both of us.
Depending on the scale and ambition of a partnership, it will typically involve one or more of the following:
a donation to contribute towards either a specific project or one of our core areas of work
co-designed, measurable success factors in areas such as employee or customer engagement
a dedicated account manager who will work with you to understand your requirements
volunteering opportunities for your staff, either with us on-site or through desk-based skill-sharing
employee fundraising opportunities, such as Canalathon
regular reporting on the impact your donation is making on our work
invitations to events and networking opportunities
consumer-facing opportunities, such as the use of our logo
We care for a 2,000-mile network of stunning canals and navigable rivers that connect many of the UK's urban and rural areas. Our network provides essential spaces for wildlife and people, helping us all feel happier and healthier.
A partnership with us means keeping canals alive, making a direct impact on local communities and improving environments and habitat for much-loved species.
Improve your company’s brand
We're a national charity with enormous reach. Nine million people in England and Wales live within a short walk of our canals, rivers, and reservoirs. This huge, diverse audience is spread over a wide area and could see first-hand the evidence of our work together.
Support your local community
We work in partnership with local communities up and down the country. Improving canalside infrastructure and habitat alongside these communities can lead to enormous social, mental and physical health benefits.
Boost team morale
Volunteering is great for your mental health. Providing high-quality volunteering days for staff is a key deliverable for most businesses. We have a significant track record in delivering team engagement and volunteering days for our corporate partners. We can work with you to design KPIs around engagement and other benefits of volunteering with us as part of our partnership.
Whether it's a long-term partnership or employees giving to charity through work, we'll design something that works for both of us.
Corporate donations to charity
We are keen to develop long-term strategic partnerships with businesses who share our love of nature and working alongside local communities.
If a long-term partnership isn’t right for you, we're still more than happy to accept one-off or occasional donations, and are able to direct these to specific areas of our work.
Payroll Giving
As part of a long-term partnership, we're able to work with your Payroll Giving supplier to further drive employee engagement with our work.
Depending on the ambition of our partnership, we can spend time with your teams talking about what we do and encouraging charitable donations through work.
Match donations
We run regular appeals and fundraising campaigns for specific projects, and we welcome match-funding support from partners for these campaigns.
Environment Agency enforcement undertakings
In some cases, we're able to work with businesses which have received an enforcement undertaking. We're happy to discuss this with you on a case-by-case basis.
