Developing Successful Partnerships

What is a Partnership?

A partnership is A voluntary arrangement working cooperatively shared or compatible objectives shared authority, responsibility and

management for the project

What is a Partnership?

A partnership is joint investment of resources (time, work,

funding, material, expertise, information) shared liability or risk-taking mutual benefits (win-win situations)

Why Use Partnerships?

Maximize efforts by sharing resources, headaches, successes

two heads are better than one

Each Partner Benefits:

Government departments want visibility and public support for their programs

Non-government organizations want visibility and public and corporate support (resources)

Companies want a return on investment and to be good corporate citizens

What To Do

Step One: Know what you want have a plan with definite objectives think of it as a Business Plan be succinct think long-term

What To Do

Step One: Know what you have what do you bring to the table? do you have the necessary human resources? Can you bring in skilled volunteers? What are your training needs?

What To Do

Step One: Know your bottom line

Develop Partnership Guidelines statement of principles screening criteria for partners an administrative process

What To Do

Step Two: Do your homework know your targets be aware of potential conflict of interest and

incompatibility issues learn as much as you can about an

organization before you approach it or accept an invitation to work with it

What To Do

Step Three: Go for it! Take proposal to a variety of possible partners know who to see

– most companies have 3 types of funding that can be used to support partnership activities

donations advertising promotions

What To Do

Step Three: Go for it! Ask for something specific explore options, be prepared to deal don’t give up follow through have realistic expectations

The Partnership Agreement

Scope and objectives

roles and responsibilities

benefits mechanisms for

termination milestones and

evaluation

Evaluation

Partnerships should be monitored from development through execution– develop an evaluation process at the start

Ongoing evaluations identify what elements contributed to the success or failure of the initiative

Build on the strengths that these evaluations identify

You Should Know...

You are competing in a volatile marketplace partnerships must be approached strategically although companies want to be good corporate

citizens, they can not afford to ignore the bottom line

You Should Know...

Potential problems must be weighed against lost opportunities

not a short term activity - have to work at it everyday

do ongoing evaluations to identify what elements contributed to the success or failure of the initiative

You Should Know…

Build on the strengths that these evaluations identify

If things don’t work out with your corporate partner (and this does happen), start working on a relationship with another corporate partner

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