Increasingly, companies look to demonstrate meaningful social impact through their CSR, ESG and employee engagement programmes. And, partnering with a charity delivers a “win, win” for all parties, as it gives employees and customers a cause to align to, and the cause exposure and income from fundraising. But the most effective partnerships should be judged by the difference they make, rather than the category a charity occupies. At Leukaemia Care, we support people affected by blood cancer at every stage of life, including children and their families.
Yet because we are not exclusively a children’s charity, the work we do with younger patients is not always the first thing prospective corporate partners hear about us. And we get why this is, but are charity selection policies helping them find the most effective partners, or inadvertently excluding organisations that could deliver the impact they want to achieve?
Our latest figures demonstrate just how significant children and young people are to our support work. In 2025 – 26, 63.4% of applications for our CAR-T (Chimeric antigen receptor T cell) therapy support service were aged 18 and under – the average age was just nine years old. CAR-T is an advanced treatment that uses a patient’s own immune cells, modified to recognise and attack cancer. For some patients with blood cancer, it offers a potentially life-changing treatment option. But it is highly specialised, and accessing it can mean travelling a considerable distance from home. In fact, in that same time frame, the average distance Leukaemia Care patients and their families travelled from a family home to the nearest hospital providing the treatment was 113 miles.
These are just our figures, rather than all children receiving CAR-T therapy nationally. But what it does illustrate is the challenges facing families who need to access specialist treatment away from home – with Great Ormond Street, Great North Children’s Hospital, and Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital the three key centres identified by the NHS for paediatric CAR-T services.
Of course, we don’t provide the CAR-T service, but through a charitable partnership with Dalata Hotel Group, we are able to take just some of that travel and expense burden away from parents and families navigating long distances, while balancing work, household finances and the needs of other children at home.
When treatment means travel
Finding somewhere to stay, arranging meals and managing everyday responsibilities can add another layer of pressure at an already difficult time. In 2025 – 26, 13 of our 64 applicants aged up to 18 used our hotel accommodation service, accounting for 254 nights across the recorded locations. And with hotel stays of up to 31 nights.
And that’s what we mean when we talk about impact. Dalata is in a position to offer more than a link on their website and fundraising initiatives – it uses the resources it has to help those needing it most. For those families, it provides somewhere to sleep, eat and recover between hospital visits, while allowing a parent to remain close to their child.
The Government has recognised this in its National Cancer Plan for England, published in February 2026. The plan commits up to £10 million a year to help children and young people with cancer and their families meet travel costs, with the scheme due to be in effect by 2027. The Government cited findings from the 2024 Under-16 Cancer Patient Experience Survey that 37.6% of respondents took more than an hour to reach the hospital where their child received most of their care.
This is a positive step in the right direction, but travel is only one issue, as we have seen, meaning charities and corporate partners can play a complementary role in providing the support and services that come with the need for clinical treatment away from home.
The opportunity for businesses
The lesson is that a corporate partner can bring more to a charity partnership than money, and the most useful contribution will depend on the needs of the people the charity supports and the capabilities of the organisation involved. A retailer might bring its supply chain, distribution network, products or customer reach. A hospitality business might provide accommodation, meals or meeting space. An employer might offer professional expertise, paid volunteering time or opportunities to engage colleagues in fundraising and awareness-raising.
Similarly, there are opportunities for organisations from a whole host of sectors, such as logistics, finance, technology, construction, and professional services to use their expertise to help families of children needing specialist support.
The opportunity is to match what a business does well with what a charity and its beneficiaries genuinely need. For CSR, ESG, sustainability and HR heads, charity partnerships can support several business priorities at once – community investment, employee engagement, and the demonstration of social impact. It’s also important to be able to demonstrate what has changed as a result of a partnership, and whether it sustains that contribution beyond a one-off campaign.
The money raised, the number of volunteers involved or the hours contributed are useful, and as a head of a national charity it’s very welcome, but understanding how that support helps people is equally important. In other words, what’s the impact?
There is also a great opportunity to involve employees in understanding that impact, rather than limiting their role to fundraising. When colleagues understand the practical challenges families face when their child needs specialist care, for instance, they can develop a stronger connection to the cause, and a clearer sense of what impact their contribution makes.
Children’s charities play an invaluable role, and there is nothing wrong with a business choosing to support one. The question is whether a children-only policy should automatically exclude every organisation that also supports adults.
Blood cancer does not affect just one age group, and the support people need does not stop at the age of 18. A charity working across age groups can deliver specialist services that make a substantial difference to children, while also helping parents, partners and other family members affected by the same diagnosis. Our experience suggests that businesses could broaden their search for the right partner by looking at the specific outcomes they want to achieve, rather than narrowing the field before they have considered what different charities can offer.
At Leukaemia Care, we want prospective partners to understand that supporting people of all ages does not dilute our impact on children. It is part of the reason we can support families across the different challenges that blood cancer brings.
The best corporate partnerships tend to be the ones in which a business understands a genuine need, brings something valuable to address it, and can demonstrate the difference that contribution makes.
October 28, 2026
Are businesses missing the point of charity partnerships?
by Colin Dyer • Comment, Wellbeing
Yet because we are not exclusively a children’s charity, the work we do with younger patients is not always the first thing prospective corporate partners hear about us. And we get why this is, but are charity selection policies helping them find the most effective partners, or inadvertently excluding organisations that could deliver the impact they want to achieve?
Our latest figures demonstrate just how significant children and young people are to our support work. In 2025 – 26, 63.4% of applications for our CAR-T (Chimeric antigen receptor T cell) therapy support service were aged 18 and under – the average age was just nine years old. CAR-T is an advanced treatment that uses a patient’s own immune cells, modified to recognise and attack cancer. For some patients with blood cancer, it offers a potentially life-changing treatment option. But it is highly specialised, and accessing it can mean travelling a considerable distance from home. In fact, in that same time frame, the average distance Leukaemia Care patients and their families travelled from a family home to the nearest hospital providing the treatment was 113 miles.
These are just our figures, rather than all children receiving CAR-T therapy nationally. But what it does illustrate is the challenges facing families who need to access specialist treatment away from home – with Great Ormond Street, Great North Children’s Hospital, and Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital the three key centres identified by the NHS for paediatric CAR-T services.
Of course, we don’t provide the CAR-T service, but through a charitable partnership with Dalata Hotel Group, we are able to take just some of that travel and expense burden away from parents and families navigating long distances, while balancing work, household finances and the needs of other children at home.
When treatment means travel
Finding somewhere to stay, arranging meals and managing everyday responsibilities can add another layer of pressure at an already difficult time. In 2025 – 26, 13 of our 64 applicants aged up to 18 used our hotel accommodation service, accounting for 254 nights across the recorded locations. And with hotel stays of up to 31 nights.
And that’s what we mean when we talk about impact. Dalata is in a position to offer more than a link on their website and fundraising initiatives – it uses the resources it has to help those needing it most. For those families, it provides somewhere to sleep, eat and recover between hospital visits, while allowing a parent to remain close to their child.
The Government has recognised this in its National Cancer Plan for England, published in February 2026. The plan commits up to £10 million a year to help children and young people with cancer and their families meet travel costs, with the scheme due to be in effect by 2027. The Government cited findings from the 2024 Under-16 Cancer Patient Experience Survey that 37.6% of respondents took more than an hour to reach the hospital where their child received most of their care.
This is a positive step in the right direction, but travel is only one issue, as we have seen, meaning charities and corporate partners can play a complementary role in providing the support and services that come with the need for clinical treatment away from home.
The opportunity for businesses
The lesson is that a corporate partner can bring more to a charity partnership than money, and the most useful contribution will depend on the needs of the people the charity supports and the capabilities of the organisation involved. A retailer might bring its supply chain, distribution network, products or customer reach. A hospitality business might provide accommodation, meals or meeting space. An employer might offer professional expertise, paid volunteering time or opportunities to engage colleagues in fundraising and awareness-raising.
Similarly, there are opportunities for organisations from a whole host of sectors, such as logistics, finance, technology, construction, and professional services to use their expertise to help families of children needing specialist support.
The opportunity is to match what a business does well with what a charity and its beneficiaries genuinely need. For CSR, ESG, sustainability and HR heads, charity partnerships can support several business priorities at once – community investment, employee engagement, and the demonstration of social impact. It’s also important to be able to demonstrate what has changed as a result of a partnership, and whether it sustains that contribution beyond a one-off campaign.
The money raised, the number of volunteers involved or the hours contributed are useful, and as a head of a national charity it’s very welcome, but understanding how that support helps people is equally important. In other words, what’s the impact?
There is also a great opportunity to involve employees in understanding that impact, rather than limiting their role to fundraising. When colleagues understand the practical challenges families face when their child needs specialist care, for instance, they can develop a stronger connection to the cause, and a clearer sense of what impact their contribution makes.
Children’s charities play an invaluable role, and there is nothing wrong with a business choosing to support one. The question is whether a children-only policy should automatically exclude every organisation that also supports adults.
Blood cancer does not affect just one age group, and the support people need does not stop at the age of 18. A charity working across age groups can deliver specialist services that make a substantial difference to children, while also helping parents, partners and other family members affected by the same diagnosis. Our experience suggests that businesses could broaden their search for the right partner by looking at the specific outcomes they want to achieve, rather than narrowing the field before they have considered what different charities can offer.
At Leukaemia Care, we want prospective partners to understand that supporting people of all ages does not dilute our impact on children. It is part of the reason we can support families across the different challenges that blood cancer brings.
The best corporate partnerships tend to be the ones in which a business understands a genuine need, brings something valuable to address it, and can demonstrate the difference that contribution makes.
Colin Dyer is chief executive of blood cancer charity Leukaemia Care