Building Strategic Partnerships That Measurably Strengthen Your Nonprofit

Strategic partnerships can help a nonprofit expand its programs, increase its resources, and reach people it could not reach on its own. But not all partnerships are strategic. Some take considerable staff time while producing very little of lasting value. Others begin with a lot of enthusiasm but never develop into much more than a friendly relationship.

How do you tell the difference? And how does a small nonprofit identify the partnerships worth pursuing?

Over the years, I have negotiated partnerships involving nonprofits, government agencies, colleges, businesses, media organizations, churches, and community groups. Some were friendly but produced only modest lasting benefits. The valuable ones gave one or both organizations opportunities to grow—in programs, resources, reach, funding, credibility, or some other important area.

A useful place to start is not with the question, “Who would partner with us?” but instead, “What do we have that someone else could use?” and “What does someone else have that could help us accomplish more?”

Look for Underused Resources

Organizations and businesses often have valuable resources that they are not fully using. Meeting facilities, classrooms, office space, equipment, vehicles, or staff expertise may sit unused for part of the day, week, or year. Sharing them can reduce costs while giving each partner access to resources it would not purchase on its own.

Early in my career, I worked with a community arts organization in Virginia that formed a partnership with an upscale restaurant housed in a former YMCA building. Upstairs was the old basketball court, complete with a stage at one end. The restaurant allowed us to use the space for dinner theatre while they prepared and served the meals.

For a small arts organization, the arrangement gave us a venue in a prime location in a historic downtown building, along with a restaurant to handle the food. The restaurant received additional publicity and introduced its food to the audience who might return later as customers.
We each had something the other needed.

I found another version of this when I started an AmeriCorps program in Kansas. A small private college provided unused office space in the basement of a dormitory. We recruited many of our AmeriCorps volunteers from the college, and the awards they earned through their service could, in turn, help pay their college expenses. The arrangement connected unused space, student recruitment, community service, and educational benefits in a way that served both organizations.

Build Partnerships That Strengthen Existing Programs

Partnerships can be particularly effective when organizations serve the same people but provide different services.

Years ago, I directed a large volunteer tutoring program that trained adults to tutor students in basic reading, GED preparation, and English as a Second Language. Most of our work was one-on-one or family groups and we did not operate GED or ESL classes ourselves, so we contacted organizations that did and asked whether some of their students could benefit from individual tutors.

Many could. Classroom teachers were already identifying students who needed one-on-one assistance but did not have the time or staff to provide it. We established referral systems that allowed teachers either to refer students to our tutors or to request tutors who could work with students in the classroom.

The arrangement benefited everyone involved. We shared some training materials, instructional resources, and costs. Teachers received additional help. Our tutors had a steady source of students who needed them. Students received individual instruction in addition to their classroom work. And because our student numbers grew, we were better positioned to seek additional grants and donations.

Neither organization had to create a new program. We connected two existing programs in a way that made both more effective.

I used the same general approach while working to expand the Shenandoah Valley Music Festival. The Festival took place outdoors at an old hot springs resort in a rural mountain community. We wanted to add amenities that would make attending the Festival a  experience, but we did not have the staff or resources to provide them ourselves.

So we invited community organizations to join us.

Churches and community groups received free space to hold ice cream socials during the Festival weekends and kept the proceeds for their own work. Other community organizations operated concession stands. At our annual benefit ball, the volunteer fire department handled valet parking and kept the tips.

The Festival gained services and amenities without adding significant expense or staff responsibilities. The participating organizations gained fundraising opportunities and access to Festival audiences. What could have been an added expense for us became a benefit for community organizations as well.

Find Partners with Access to Resources You Cannot Reach

Sometimes a potential partner has access to funding or other resources that your organization cannot directly obtain.

At one nonprofit, I identified federal funding that fit work we were already doing. The difficulty was that the federal government could only award the money to state agencies.

We approached a state institution whose goals overlapped with ours and developed an arrangement under which our organization helped it meet those goals. The institution obtained the federal funds and contracted with us to perform work that contributed to the grant objectives.

Our organization gained access to funding for work we were equipped to do, while the state institution gained a partner that could help it deliver the results required by the grant.

This is an area where it pays to think beyond fundraising. Instead of asking another organization to support your work, ask whether your organization can help it accomplish something it needs to do. The answer may reveal resources that were never available to you directly.

Expand Your Reach Through Business Partnerships

Businesses may also have marketing resources and audiences that would be prohibitively expensive for a small nonprofit to reach.

While marketing community theatre, I encountered a television station that paired fifteen-second nonprofit public service announcements with paid advertising from local businesses, giving free exposure to the nonprofit, an opportunity for businesses to advertise while supporting community nonprofits, and the station sold advertising Each participant had a reason for the arrangement to work.

I encountered a similar opportunity while working with a statewide nonprofit in North Carolina that needed both greater visibility and increased donations. An independently owned television station was interested in our work and offered to air fifteen-second spots for us at no charge.

We purchased professionally produced spots from a similar nonprofit in another state, adapted them for our organization, and supplied them to the station. The station aired them for the next year.

Through the increased exposure, donations mushroomed and we were eventually able to purchase additional advertising on major network affiliates around the state. But the value went beyond fundraising. The television coverage introduced our organization to people throughout North Carolina who needed the services we provided.

The free advertising did not merely save money. It helped us reach the point where we could afford additional advertising ourselves and increase the reach of our services.


Consider What a Partner's Reputation Can Add

Sometimes the resource another organization brings is its name, expertise, or standing in a particular field.

Early in my career, I directed marketing for an arts nonprofit in western Virginia that offered theatre, dance, and writing programs throughout the year. Two collaborations helped give the organization recognition well beyond its local programs.

A collaboration with the Kennedy Center helped establish the Shenandoah Playwrights Retreat, while work with the Virginia Commission for the Arts gave us responsibility for judging and administering the Virginia Prize for Playwriting.

Those relationships connected a relatively small organization with respected institutions and accomplished artists. They also gave our work a visibility and credibility that would have been difficult to establish through marketing alone.

Collaboration can add credibility in other ways as well. It can make research possible, strengthen grant proposals, or bring together expertise that no single organization possesses.

In Greensboro, North Carolina, I worked with people at a local university and representatives of city and state agencies—including police and social service agencies—to develop a successful HUD grant proposal for wraparound services for underprivileged children. The resulting effort drew on programs and expertise from several agencies and the university. Children in the community received services, while university students preparing to become teachers, social workers, and other community professionals gained opportunities to learn through the work.

In both cases, collaboration strengthened the work because the problem was larger than the expertise or resources of any one organization.

Use Technology to Make Collaboration Easier

Technology has made some forms of partnership quite time and cost effective that would once have been difficult or expensive. Organizations can jointly produce podcasts, webinars, online courses, training programs, and digital resources without needing to operate in the same location. They can divide the work of developing content, handling production, marketing the finished product, and distributing it to their respective audiences.

Recently, an organization with which I am involved joined two other agencies to produce a series of leadership training videos. Together, the organizations obtained a grant to support the project. They could draw on knowledgeable people from all three organizations to develop the training while also sharing the administrative work involved in producing, marketing, and distributing the videos.

In another collaboration, computer students from a nearby college helped develop digital resources that made instructional materials easier for online users to search and access. The nonprofit received technical assistance, while the students had an opportunity to apply what they were learning to a real project.

Technology itself was not the partnership in either case. It simply made it possible for each participant to contribute something useful to a common project.

What Makes a Partnership Strategic?

These examples are very different: a restaurant and an arts organization, a college and an AmeriCorps program, tutors and classroom teachers, a state institution and a nonprofit, community organizations and a music festival, television stations and charities.

What they have in common is an exchange of measurable value.

One organization had space. Another had programming. One had students who needed experience. Another had work that needed to be done. One had access to government funding. Another had the ability to deliver the services. One had an audience. Another had a cause worth putting before that audience.

This gives us a useful test for a prospective partnership. Identify what each party is contributing and what each expects to gain. If the answers are vague or particularly limited on either side, the partnership may amount to little more than goodwill. If both sides can identify something of real value that they could not as easily obtain on their own, it is likely to be strategic partnership worth developing.

The question, then, is not simply, “Who should we partner with?”

Ask instead: “What do we have that another organization needs, and what do they have that would allow us to do more?”

The strongest partnerships usually begin when there is a good answer to both questions.

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