How to Forge Long-Lasting Corporate Partnerships Using Sales Navigator

Corporate fundraising for nonprofits all comes down to relationship management. Corporate donors are more likely to keep supporting your nonprofit if your development team can form meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships with them at both the organizational and individual level. 

LinkedIn Sales Navigator equips nonprofits with all the information they need to forge and maintain these relationships. Using this fundraising solution, development teams can quickly tap into the LinkedIn network to find organizations that may be interested in supporting their cause, connect with individuals within these organizations, and foster relationships that last. 

Here’s how your team can get started using Sales Navigator to nurture long-lasting relationships. 

Use advanced search features to find accounts to track

LinkedIn Sales Navigator gives users access to over 40 advanced search filters. You can use Sales Navigator to find organizations based on factors like company size, headcount growth, industry, recent leadership changes, and more. 

Try using these advanced search filters to find organizations that match your Ideal Donor Profiles. When a search populates strong results, you can save those parameters for future use and even set Sales Navigator to automatically rerun the search and send you updated results. You can receive weekly alerts for up to 50 lead searches and 50 account searches saved this way.

When you find organizations that might want to donate to your nonprofit, you can set up account alerts to follow their activity and look for opportunities to connect. These account alerts will send your team notifications whenever promising accounts are mentioned in news articles, experience employee growth or layoffs, and more. Use these alerts to determine the right moment to reach out and start fostering relationships with leads at the organization.

Find “champions” within accounts with Relationship Explorer

The Relationship Explorer feature in Sales Navigator proactively finds the best paths into the accounts you’re targeting. It does this by surfacing up to eight individuals within an organization who are most likely to want to connect with your nonprofit, based on their relevancy and any mutual connections you already have with them. For instance, it might recommend you follow and connect with someone in upper management because they already follow your nonprofit’s Page or because you already have several connections in common. 

These strategic connections could act as “champions” by advocating for your nonprofit within their organization on your behalf. Sales Navigator also allows you to set up “lead” or individual-level notifications, enabling you to track a person’s activity and interact with them when appropriate. This could include commenting on their content, sending them relevant links, and reaching out with an ask when the time is right. 

Building connections with potential champions can continue to create opportunities even if they leave their current organization. After all, you never know where they’ll go next — and if you nurture the relationship, you’ll always have a way in.

Leverage your connections with TeamLink

TeamLink is a feature available to Advanced and Advanced Plus Sales Navigator users that allows you to see any first-degree connections that your teammates connected to the Sales Navigator account have with an individual or organization. Use these connections to find “warm introductions” to the account you want to form a relationship with. 

You can do this by asking the teammate to introduce you to their connection via a LinkedIn message. After the introduction, connect with the potential champion and get the conversation started. You can also invite them to follow your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page to ensure your organization stays top of mind.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to multiple contacts at a target organization. It never hurts to have multiple champions. Plus, as you make connections within the organization, you can ask your new champions to introduce you to other decision makers, or even refer you to their connections at other organizations. Every new relationship is an opportunity to make more. 

Identify key decision makers with Relationship Map

The Relationship Map function builds off of the foundations of Relationship Explorer, allowing users to construct a map of an organization’s decision-making committees. Creating a relationship map of a donor organization can help your team see who’s in charge of what at a glance — and how each decision maker relates to the others. Use Relationship Map to track job changes, connections, and opportunities for outreach from a single, connected visualization. 

Relationship Map becomes even more useful for nonprofits when combined with Relationship Explorer and TeamLink insights. First, use Relationship Explorer to find the top eight most relevant leads within an organization. Then, use TeamLink to find out if anyone on your team has connections in common with them. Finally, leverage Relationship Map to gain an understanding of how each of these potential connections relate to each other within the organization. This will give you all the information you need to connect with all key decision makers and start building meaningful relationships that last.

To start using Sales Navigator to build relationships with corporate donors, get in touch with our sales team today.