Cleverdon made the call at the “Building Business Through Partnership” conference yesterday, hosted by BITC. She went on to say that although solid foundations had already been laid by the Cause Related Marketing (CRM) Principles, the guidelines for best practice, such a Compact would help charity/business relationships achieve their full potential.

“We have moved a long way in recent years towards understanding that partnerships between businesses and charities need to be a partnership of equals in order to work,” she said. “But we can still see instances where corporates can undervalue charities and their brands, and charities can miss opportunities by looking for hand-outs not handshakes.

“We aim to build a greater movement of businesses committed to cause related marketing partnerships and believe this will provide a concrete, business-led response to the Corporate Challenge announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the 2002 Business in the Community AGM.”