Business tourism and events have enormous potential to benefit a destination, whether it’s a large-scale annual conference, an academic summit, or a smaller meeting of minds. As well as being powerhouses of innovation and driving economic potential for the city, many event planners are looking to give back to communities and enhance the brand image of their conferences and events.
Social impact is becoming a major topic of conversation in the industry and is something that more event planners are considering implementing themselves.
From volunteering days to offering donations, providing food or other surplus resources from events, or longer-term support such as education, resources or real-life experiences, social impact programmes can take many forms. Each brings benefits to destinations like Manchester, the people within them, and the local environment.
But social impact, by its nature, is a collaborative concept. It involves working together to drive positive change in communities and cities. For social impact to succeed and feel authentic, it cannot be left to event planners alone.
With so many different organisations involved in planning an event – from venues to suppliers, sponsors to academics – there is a huge opportunity to collaborate as a force for good. There is also a significant opportunity to work with a destination and connect with organisations dedicated to making a difference.
By forging collaborations and working with different partners, your social impact programme can become more meaningful, empower communities and leave a lasting legacy in a region. Here’s why collaboration is key to social impact projects:
1. Shared vision and alignment
Worthwhile social impact projects often involve complex challenges that span sectors and organisations, whether that’s working with a venue to minimise waste, collaborating with academics to forge new career pathways or finding community groups that truly support your mission. Working with a destination management organisation like Marketing Manchester can ensure you’re in touch with the right people from the start. Collaborating early ensures all stakeholders are aligned around a shared purpose, helping avoid duplication of effort and conflicting agendas, and making your work more impactful.
2. Bring together different expertise
Different stakeholders bring unique strengths and knowledge that can help you build your social impact programme into something special. For example, local authorities may offer policy support and infrastructure, businesses can contribute funding and innovation, community groups provide grassroots insight and trust while academia adds research and evaluation capabilities. By working in collaboration with event planners, each of these stakeholders can maximise their unique strengths to achieve more than they could alone. By coming together to support the shared cause from the beginning, they can achieve more than they possibly could alone and make a much bigger impact.
3. Enhance credibility
Working with local organisations, businesses, and community groups ensures diverse voices are included in your social impact programme. This gives the initiative greater credibility and a higher chance of success. It’s vital to include voices from the communities affected or experts in the area you’re trying to support. This fosters trust, drives longer-term collaborations and creates lasting impact. Whether liaising with biodiversity experts, university lecturers, local charities or local authorities, these voices understand the scale of the challenge and can help ensure your programme is sincere.
4. Think outside the box
Collaboration often sparks unique ideas and cross-sector thinking. With the right voices around the table, your conference’s social impact programme can be more creative, memorable and effective. Social impact programmes are never one-size-fits-all; there is no set structure for how you can positively impact the local community, environment or destination. To avoid appearing like a box-ticking exercise, think differently and ensure your approach feels authentic to your brand and delegates. Diverse perspectives also help challenge assumptions, uncover blind spots and drive innovative ideas. Don’t be afraid to try something new – it might have more impact than expected.
5. Greater accountability and transparency
Collaboration often involves shared governance structures, improving transparency and accountability. This is crucial in social impact work, where outcomes can be hard to measure and trust is key. Working together means keeping accurate records – you cannot simply claim your conference reduced carbon emissions or helped people find jobs; you need evidence. Different stakeholders can measure various aspects of your work, follow up for feedback and make impact easier to track. This also helps you gather case studies and examples for marketing activity.
6. Potential for scalability and replication
By involving stakeholders from the outset, your social impact programme is more likely to be scalable and replicable. Building initiatives on inclusive frameworks makes them easier to adapt to different contexts. It’s much harder to involve new organisations once an initiative is already running. Whether you want to replicate the programme in a new destination, expand its impact next year or adapt it for another cause, embedding collaboration early makes this far easier.
Marketing Manchester’s Convention Bureau makes collaboration simple when implementing your conference’s social impact programme. Created in association with Manchester Central - the city’s largest convention centre - and Manchester Community Central, which supports voluntary, community and social enterprises across the city, Manchester’s social impact guide connects event organisers with 25 charities and community projects across the region.
Set out across six key themes; education and careers, environment, food, diversity, equity and inclusion, social and community, and higher education – the guide offers a range of charities and organisations for event organisers to partner with when hosting an event in Manchester.
Ready to work together on your social impact project?
Download Manchester’s Legacy and Social Impact Guide and contact the team at Marketing Manchester to get started.
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