The challenge
CIEHF already had strong relationships, a respected position in its field and organisations interested in working with it. The opportunity was to bring greater structure and consistency to how that interest was developed into commercial conversations.
As activity around IEA 2027 increased, the Institute needed a clearer way to develop sponsorship and partnership opportunities, shape propositions around the needs of individual organisations and manage opportunities through the pipeline.
Membership required a similar approach. Rather than leading with benefits or membership levels, the aim was to give the team a practical way to understand what sat behind an enquiry and connect that need to the right proposition.
What we did
Working alongside the CIEHF team, we developed a common commercial approach across partnerships, sponsorship and membership.
The method was deliberately simple: understand the opportunity, explore what matters to the organisation or individual, agree the route forward and build the proposition around it.
It was applied directly to live partnership and sponsorship opportunities, including those connected to IEA 2027, and adapted through coaching sessions for individual and organisational membership conversations.
Alongside this, we introduced clearer pipeline management, reusable proposition templates and practical tools to help the team move opportunities from initial interest towards a defined next step.
The methodology, templates and learning were then brought together in a commercial playbook, giving CIEHF a repeatable approach it can continue to use and develop.
From strategy into practice
The work moved quickly from methodology into live commercial conversations.
Partnership propositions were developed around active opportunities, including a leading UK university, while the IEA 2027 approach was translated into clearer sponsorship propositions and routes into conversation.
One IEA 2027 partnership was successfully agreed during the project, while other live opportunities continued to progress through the pipeline.
For membership, the same commercial principles were translated into a practical conversation methodology for both individual and organisational prospects, supported by coaching, role-play and reusable discussion tools.
CIEHF finished the project with a common commercial approach spanning some of its most important areas of growth, together with the tools to apply it consistently.
Building on the approach
The immediate opportunity is to apply the approach more widely across CIEHF’s IEA 2027 sponsorship pipeline and organisational membership activity, using each new conversation to strengthen the methodology further.
With a common commercial process, clearer propositions and practical tools now in place, CIEHF has a stronger platform from which to develop relationships and commercial opportunities in the run-up to IEA 2027 and beyond.