New Nonprofit Partnership Opportunity! Blue Skies Ahead?
Having worked in multinational, start-up, and non-profit environments, I can safely say that effective nonprofit partnerships have always been critical to accelerating impact. On the other side, poor partnerships have drained significant resources, energy, and good will.
While many organizations focus on the legal aspects of forming partnerships, it is also critical to consider some of the softer issues necessary to identifying and developing effective relationships. Here are some of the issues and questions that you and your team should discuss before signing on the dotted line.
Value Alignment
Somewhat intangible, values are also very real. When there is value alignment, there is a shared way of looking at the world and knowing what's important. Questions to ask are:
How do we evaluate a successful partnership? How does our potential partner evaluate the same?
What are some examples of successful partnerships that we have had in the past? Why?
What are some concrete ways that the value alignment manifests itself without a formal partnership in place?
Do all the core members on our team see and agree with the examples?
Outcome Balance
Given that there is an assumption that the partnership is beneficial to both parties, is the desired outcome equally valuable to both organizations?
If there is an imbalance in how important the outcome is, how does that impact the sense of urgency on decision-making and actual performance of individual parties?
Are there clear expectations on what the responsibilities of both parties are?
Are there clear expectations on what is a “win” for each party?
Production Ethic
Is there a shared work ethic? How do we know?
Is there a smaller project that we can road test before making a longer term commitment?
What are the milestones and checkpoints along the way?
Conflict Resolution
How does their team (and ours) deal with internal conflict?
How do we interact when conflict or awkwardness arises between the two teams?
Can we explicitly contract for how we put conflict on the table and move on assuming that everyone recognizes that ignoring conflict does not mean it goes away?
Communication
Are we operating with the same lexicon? Do we have a common understanding of phrases such as short time frame or business opportunity?
Where do we need to be more explicit so that there are no misunderstandings?
How are the communications channels — open, selectively open, closed unless one party requires something?
What are the preferred methods for staying in contact?
What happens when one side goes silent during the formation stage?
How is communications perceived or dealt with when joint decisions need to be made?
While much is covered in the legal terms and conditions, having the discussion about the issues above can put you and your partners in better stead for maximizing impact — or walking away before getting in too deeply on an opportunity that is not right.