Hi! Welcome back! Whether you are starting or growing a non-profit organization,
partnerships and collaborations with other organizations can be a great way to grow your
organization's reach and impacts. But if you are not careful partnerships might not go as planned.
So in this video I'm going to share four steps as well as some tips and strategies for forming an
effective and mutually beneficial partnership with another organization. If we haven't met before,
hello there, I'm Amber Melanie Smith! I am a non-profit founder and executive director of the
nonprofit that i started and i make these videos here on Youtube to help other folks who want to
make an impact whether it's through starting a non-profit or social enterprise or leadership or
activism or what have you i want to help folks who want to essentially make an impact change their
communities change the world with strategies and tips to do that i hope that you find this video
helpful and useful uh don't forget to give it a like and let me know and subscribe to my channel
for more content on topics like this i also have a website FounderToFullTime.com, where you can
check out some of my other online trainings and resources that might help you out depending on
where you are in your making an impact or starting a non-profit journey all right so let's get into
this as i said i'm going to break this down into four different steps so the first step is finding
the right partner and before you can seek the right partner you have to know yourself a little
bit you have to know your organization and its needs you have to understand why you're seeking
a partnership in the first place and what your ideal vision for a partnership looks like so what
are some of the common reasons a non-profit might need or want to partner with another organization
well the first is start up support and that usually means that you've got a newer organization
probably one that doesn't yet have its official registration or tax exempt status complete
yet and it needs another organization to lend it its tax-exempt status through perhaps a
fiscal sponsorship and perhaps help build up its credibility through a partnership with a more
well-established organization usually this occurs with two organizations that are aligned in their
values and the particular social or community issue that they are tackling together and so the
more well-established organization will be okay with fiscally sponsoring the new startup because
they have complementary services or programs or vision another reason might be reach perhaps one
organization and the partnership is just better equipped to reach a certain target population
than the other organization so they team up to essentially be able to reach each other's
populations and thus expand the reach of both organizations at the same time
another reason might be funding opportunities funders especially grant makers love to see
non-profits collaborate with each other so teaming up to create some kind of collective
impact and apply for grants together or certain funding opportunities together could be a good
strategy also and another reason might be program expansion so similar to reach the idea here is
that these two or more organizations have services or programs that complement each other they're
filling in each other's gaps so to speak so by teaming up they're able to help the community
or a particular population within the community with more and additional or wrap around services
so just think about all of these reasons and be able to clearly articulate why your organization
is in need of or seeking a specific partnership if you can do that if you can establish your needs
and hopes in advance then you'll be able to seek out the right partner because not all partnerships
are created equal you'll be able to find the right partner for your specific needs at that time the
second step in this process is getting prepared to partner so this is once you identified one
or more potential partners to meet the specific needs that you considered in step one you before
you reach out to any of these organizations you want to really really nail down what specifically
you might hope to get out of partnership with that particular organization so what i mean by this is
what do you hope that they could offer your organization and because this is important to be
mutually beneficial what could your organization offer them that might be appealing to them
i i would actually literally take the step of writing these things down thinking about this
vision with a particular organization in advance can really help you frame that initial and those
ongoing conversations with that organization as you determine if a partnership is going to
be worth it for both organizations it also allows you to be transparent with that organization early
on which is important because if you are able to determine pretty soon that this partnership
is not the right fit then you can just stop the partnership discussions and not waste each other's
time at that point and just bow out gracefully support each other in other ways and this is
really important but you of course want to avoid entering into any kind of contractual obligation
with another organization especially one that could require some kind of financial commitment
to one another before establishing a significant amount of trust first so you might ask well how
do you know if you have successfully established a trusting relationship with another organization
i would argue that if you are able to have open vulnerable conversations with the leadership of
the other organization to talk about setbacks and failures and challenges in a way that is
respectful and solutions oriented that that would be one big indicator that you have
arrived at trust one good strategy is to just look at ways to partner with other
organizations that are very small in scale and temporary so not long term or large partnerships
to sort of build that trust through action and testing out the waters with each other too
building trust can take a lot of time and so it's really important to lay the foundation for these
things first before entering into any monumental partnerships that could have a big impact on both
organizations success or failure the third step in establishing an effective partnership is of
course the meetings in the introduction phase with a new potential partner organization i recommend
reaching out via email if that's possible for you first because that allows the other organization
to respond on their own terms and on their own timeline it's important in this first introduction
to not come across as too aggressive because you really want to create an environment where
both organizations knows that their needs and their goals are respected equally so of course
coming across as too aggressive could suggest that you're more concerned with your needs than their
ability to meet their own in that initial email i would keep things pretty simple and open-ended
i would start by of course introducing yourself as a person introducing your relationship to the
organization whether you're a founder or a board member or a staff person etc. and the mission of
the organization of course and that you would like to have an opportunity to potentially sit
down and discuss things with them to learn more about who they are what their goals and their
mission uh might be as an organization to see if there could be potential for future collaboration
at this stage you're just kind of inviting them to have a conversation to learn more about each
other you're not necessarily laying out all of the vision and the terms for the partnership that
you've developed in your own mind or on paper internally previously just be open-minded and
authentic and share your genuine passion for your cause and hope that that comes across in your text
then hopefully they will agree to a meeting and i do recommend meeting face to face or in today's
world of potentially some COVID, Zoom or some kind of virtual platform is fine but face-to-face when
possible to really establish that personal rapport and then just do what you described in the email
ask them lots of questions get to know them as people and as an organization find out what they
care about what their values are what their goals for the next couple of years are once you get past
that first meeting and you start entering into discussions about what a potential collaboration
could look like at that point you want to express to this partner or potential partner
that your values in a partnership include honesty and transparency and being able to
talk to each other about setbacks and challenges this really helps set the tone for trust building
in the future and during these conversations really get ready to listen and ask a lot of
questions your goal is to find out what they would need out of a partnership in order to feel
like it was a successful one or if there are any particular challenges or obstacles that they worry
could stand in the way of a healthy relationship or partnership with another organization
perhaps they have had a bad experience with a past partner and are feeling a little bit worried about
potential mishaps so if that's the case asking questions about what went wrong before so that
you can understand and work with them as a partner to help them avoid those those past mistakes that
were made in previous relationships and the fourth step of this process is of course the
process of formalizing a partnership with the partner or partners that you have selected
it's really critical at this stage to have extremely clear expectations on both sides of
what the partnership will entail you can do this by literally making a list and writing down on a
document called a memorandum of understanding or a partnership agreement document that spells out x
organization will do thing one thing two and thing three and y organization will do thing a thing b
and thing c not only should you be writing out what each organization will do but you're going
to want to write down any particular timeline relevant to the partnership so if the partnership
is going to be carried out throughout a year and then at the end of the year the partners will
sit down and assess if they'd like to continue stuff like that once the partnership commences
you want to schedule regular meetings with your partner just a time in a place where you can
sit down and talk about the progress of meeting the goals of the partnership together the goals
of each organization and make sure that there's space on your meeting agenda during those meetings
to openly talk about any particular challenges or setbacks or issues that need to be resolved
putting that literally on your meeting agenda will help reinforce this idea that you want to
have an open and trusting relationship and you're going to create space for that in discussions
problems are likely to occur in any endeavor that any organization takes on whether it's with a
partner or by themselves so like i said creating time and space for that on the agenda will
allow those problems to get resolved and avoid resentment being built up over time
if something doesn't get resolved quickly enough all right so I'd love to hear from
you what are some types of other organizations that you think could be a good fit in terms of
partnerships for whatever work that you are doing right now or what concerns or questions do you
have about partnerships and collaborations that are on your mind that you want to chat about put
those in the comments below as i mentioned before if you are in the process of starting a non-profit
or working on creating a sustainable fundraising plan for example I've got some great trainings on
my website FounderToFullTime.com so be sure to check those out i also have a newsletter that i
send out approximately monthly for non-profit leaders and change makers of all types with
resources and articles and sometimes even funding opportunities that i come across so
you can find the link to subscribe to that in the description and you can opt out anytime of course
finally i do have a group on Facebook it's called Change the World or Bust. I think at this point we
have almost 3,000 people from around the world which is just so exciting who are all trying to
make a difference in the world in their own way and are talking about their journey and what they
are working on so come check that out come join us there and i hope to see you there i hope that you
found this video helpful and um useful and like i said don't forget to give it a like and subscribe
for more content like this once again i'm Amber Melanie Smith and I hope to see you next time bye!