Nonprofit board members tend to have big dreams. What a wonderful place it would be if there were enough resources to support every one of them. The fact is most nonprofits can only achieve so much on their own.
When your nonprofit’s goals and plans are bigger than the budget, strategic partnerships bolster your efforts and allow your nonprofit to have a more significant impact.
Strategic partnerships also benefit a nonprofit’s partners. Partnerships create a mechanism that enables partners to reach their philanthropic goals.
We’ll explain strategic partnerships, outline the benefits of partnerships, and describe how to form and leverage nonprofit strategic partnerships.
A strategic partnership is any kind of collaboration that a nonprofit enters into with another party. Strategic partnerships are sometimes also called strategic alliances. Nonprofit partnerships can take the form of associations, joint programming, shared services, or mergers.
The purpose of strategic partnerships is to leverage the strengths of both parties to achieve a common goal.
Nonprofit boards can utilize strategic partnerships to scale, strengthen their programs, streamline operations, and increase their influence.
Without the benefit of strategic partnerships, many nonprofits find it challenging and painstakingly slow to scale their operations. Strategic partnerships make it easier and less costly to address complex problems where multiple stakeholders are working together.
Strategic partnerships enable nonprofits to strengthen and expand their programs and services beyond what they can do alone. Also, partnerships position nonprofits to improve the quality of their services and perform better overall.
Overhead and operational expenses can significantly cut into your nonprofit’s bottom line. Partnerships allow both parties to streamline back office and administrative duties to enhance efficiency for both partners.
Partnering with corporations and other organizations also opens up new networking opportunities. Partners can share their contacts and strategies that enable both parties to expand into new territories, provide new services, or expand the reach of beneficiaries. Shared networking also improves your nonprofit’s ability to build awareness of your mission.
City Year , a nonprofit organization that’s dedicated to helping students and schools succeed, provides an excellent example of a strategic partnership in action. The nonprofit established a strategic partnership with Timberland, a New Hampshire-based footwear and apparel company.
Timberland chose to partner with City Year because they wanted to make a stronger connection with their female customers. Their goal was two-fold — to address women’s footwear needs and help address the relevant issues to their female customers.
Timberline accomplished that by sending 50 of their employees to Inwood House in New York City, a nonprofit that provides education and counseling services to prevent teen pregnancy. The team painted bathrooms, installed new smoke detectors, added garbage receptacles, stained fences, and spruce top outdoor furniture. It was a win-win situation for everyone involved, as well as the community at large.
The best place to start planning for strategic partnerships is with your annual strategic plan . You will likely find that there are a host of potential partners that are eager to join forces with your nonprofit.
Strategic partnerships can be complex or straightforward. What’s for certain is that all partnerships are unique. Regardless of the type of agreement your board wishes to make, the following seven steps will get your board on the way to forming strategic partnerships.