Why charity corporate partnerships matter: driving sustainable change together
Approx. 10 min read
By Hannah Denyer and Chloe Root, Philanthropy and Partnership Managers at Ripple Effect
As the world approaches the 2030 deadline for the UN Sustainable Development Goals, charity corporate partnerships are becoming essential for creating meaningful, measurable impact across the globe.
The numbers tell a compelling story: globally, companies donate between $20 to $26 billion in charitable funds each year. Businesses are increasingly seeking trusted charity partners who can help them meet sustainability commitments, strengthen ESG strategies, engage employees, and demonstrate authentic social responsibility.
How corporate partnerships drive impact across our programmes
Ripple Effect works with a dedicated network of corporate partners who are helping to change people’s lives and protect the planet. Together, we support farming families across eastern Africa to grow more and sell more, while regenerating land, improving gender equality, and building climate resilience.
These partnerships go far beyond funding – they involve storytelling, shared learning, employee engagement, and sector leadership that amplifies impact and expertise beyond any single project. And with cuts to the UK aid budget and ongoing cost-of-living pressures, the support of committed corporate partners has never been more vital.
Businesses connect with Ripple Effect for many reasons – from environmental sustainability, to gender equality, to enabling market access and more.
Our work offers three key entry points for companies looking to partner with an international development charity in a meaningful, strategic way.
Sustainable agriculture & climate resilience
Partners can support our work helping farmers learn climate-smart, agroecological techniques, such as agroforestry, regenerative soil practices, fodder production, and sustainable water management. These approaches reduce emissions, restore degraded land, and enable communities to fight hunger and adapt to climate shocks.
This work underpins our new multi-country land regeneration programme, across Burundi and Rwanda.
Gender & social inclusion
For businesses committed to equality and inclusive development, our programmes offer a powerful way to champion change. We support women farmers, people with disabilities, and marginalised groups to access training, leadership roles, and economic opportunities. By improving equality at household and community level, whole farming systems strengthen from within.
This pillar shaped one of our major new initiatives launched this year: a gender-focused, multi-country programme supporting women farmers in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Enterprise development & financial inclusion
Companies with an interest in enabling entrepreneurship, sustainable supply chains, or rural business development often find strong alignment here. We provide training in business planning, marketing, value addition, financial literacy, and savings groups, helping farmers build thriving agri-businesses and strengthen local economies.
How Ripple Effect partners amplified change in 2025
We can’t transform food systems and build climate resilience alone. It takes farmers, funders, corporate partners, philanthropists, and passionate supporters all working together toward a shared vision. 2025 showed us the incredible power of that collective action.
We reached 1.1 million people this year, bringing us to 69% of our ambitious target to reach 10 million by 2030. Across all our work, we advanced environmental commitments through reduced emissions and climate mitigation activities including agroforestry, fodder production, and waste management. Our work with our corporate partners was integral to these achievements
Advocating for sustainable food systems
Working with like-minded businesses, we used our collective voice to shape conversations about the future of sustainable agriculture.
At the Oxford Real Farming Conference in January this year, our Farm Systems and Sustainability Coordinator, Meshark Sikuku, spoke on “Farming Today for Tomorrow’s Climate”. Chaired by long-standing partner and Riverford founder Guy Singh-Watson, the panel brought together farmers from three continents, highlighting parallels between challenges faced by smallholder farmers in East Africa and struggles of farmers in Europe and South America.
Meshark then joined us at our event hosted by the Financial Times, and explored how to build a fairer, more sustainable global food system. We brought together leading voices from academia and business to join forces with Meshark for a panel called "Building a Fairer Food System in the Face of the Climate Crisis." You can watch the event here.
Later on in the year, our Head of Programmes, Winnie Mailu, travelled across Ireland and the UK to meet businesses, visit organic farms, and share our approach to community-led farming with partners such as Ballymaloe Cookery School, Riverford, Monmouth Coffee, and Rude Health.
She then joined Guy Singh-Watson and author Sarah Langford on the Blue Earth Summit stage in London for "Building Resilience: What Do Farm Businesses Need to Survive and Thrive?". The panel tackled tough questions about farming's future - from climate shocks and broken supply chains to unfair markets and outdated policies - while spotlighting real solutions that work, whether you're managing a hectare in Uganda or hundreds of acres in the UK.
Sharing the Ripple Effect story: bringing together industry voices
In March, we hosted a dinner at The Duke of Cambridge in Islington to premiere our new short-film, Ripple Effect: Farming for the Future, produced in collaboration with Riverford. Guests included Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Tim Spector, representatives from Knepp Wilding and Wildfarmed, Hodmedod’s Josiah Meldrum, former Food Tsar Henry Dimbleby, and author Sarah Langford.
Their reflections from visiting our projects in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda illustrated how regenerative farming, enterprise development, and gender equality are transforming communities, and why charity corporate partnerships are essential in scaling this work.
Flexible funding that responds to climate shocks
Climate impacts across East Africa continue to intensify. Heavy rainfall, landslides, livestock losses, and crop diseases all hit farming families hard. Our partners Standard Bank and Riverford generously provided crucial flexible funding this year, allowing agile support for communities affected by extreme weather. This flexibility strengthened communities’ climate resilience when it was most needed.
Championing women farmers through long-term commitment
Our long-standing partner Natracare continued to fund the WINI Project in Wonchi, Ethiopia, supporting 1,350 households and empowering women, people with disabilities, and marginalised groups to build sustainable livelihoods. Through ripple effects, an additional 40,500 people are expected to benefit indirectly.
Employee fundraising that makes a real difference
The Starbucks Foundation is another long-term partner who has shown impressive commitment to employee fundraising over the last year. Starbucks employees across the UK raised over £10,000 this year through creative challenges. Their efforts support farmers at the “first ten feet” of the coffee value chain, connecting the everyday coffee experience to the lives of the people who grow it.
Starbucks employees from around the world also join Ripple Effect in Rwanda as part of their annual Origins Experience, where they work alongside Ripple Effect Rwanda staff and local families, taking part in a day of hands-on service. From planting kitchen gardens and mixing organic manure, to building cow sheds and laying bricks, these days are filled with meaningful connections and practical support for the individuals growing coffee.
Small business are also driving big impact
This year, we welcomed new partners Ilka Studio and Atis. Ilka Studio is a Glasgow business founded by two working mothers with a deep understanding of why our women-centred, locally led programmes matter - a shared belief that makes their partnership especially meaningful. And Atis supported our summer and Christmas campaigns by donating a portion of sales from their nutritious bowls. They are again contributing 25p from every Christmas bowl sold this year, and we look forward to growing this collaboration in 2026.
We are also deeply grateful to Thrive London for their continued support - with every bag of coffee they sell, the sister-founded B Corp helps women in coffee-growing communities build climate-resilient farms and stronger futures.
Looking ahead to 2026: opportunities for new corporate partners
We're thrilled to be planning a visit to Kenya early next year with key corporate partners and philanthropists, to see the impact of their support first-hand and connect directly with the farmers at the heart of our work.
We are also launching three new strategic funds aligned to our core impact areas, which will enable partners to donate to an area of our work that aligns best with their values and motivations:
- Farming for the Future Fund – to support our work in sustainable agriculture
- Equal Roots Fund – to support our work in gender and social inclusion
- Seed & Scale Fund – to support our work in enterprise development and financial inclusion
More details will be available on our website soon and we’ll be seeking new partners to become founder members for each fund. We would love to tell you about this exciting new initiative in our work – sign up to be contacted by our team when the funds are launched.
Become a Ripple Effect corporate partner
To our existing partners – thank you. Your collaboration helped us reach more than a million people this year and brought hope, resilience, and opportunity to farming families across eastern Africa. Together we're proving that change doesn't happen in isolation; it happens through ripple effects, one community at a time.
And to organisations or individuals seeking a meaningful, values-led partnership: we would love to explore how we can work together. Whether your goals relate to ESG, sustainability, or employee engagement, we can co-create a partnership with genuine, lasting impact. If you'd like to explore partnership opportunities with Ripple Effect, or hear our team speak at an event, please get in touch at partnerships@rippleeffect.org – we'd love to chat.
When it comes to building resilient, sustainable farming systems that work for people and planet, we are always stronger when we act collectively. Successful charity corporate partnerships create shared value – companies meet their commercial and sustainability goals, while farming families build secure, thriving futures.
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