As any parent with a toddler will know, there are limits to how much you can control their behaviour or attitude. You can cook them nourishing meals, play them Mozart or apply the latest methods for good sleep habits. But sometimes they’ll toss the broccoli on the floor, post their toast into the DVD player or wake at 2am wanting yet another drink.
Developing a partnerships program can feel a lot like wrangling toddlers all day. You’ve got stretch goals and a solid plan to get there. But you can’t do it all yourself and you’re working with colleagues that have different priorities and varying levels of understanding about what you do. They’re all lovely people but it’s like toddler taming every day. You need their input and expertise but you have no control over what they do. You need to find ways to influence and persuade because you can’t compel them.
What do you need to be successful and how can you influence your key players?
Programs
Program teams and partnership people speak different languages. Program people use a lot of acronyms, obsess about their theory of change and can’t resist going into the technical detail of what they do. They’ve usually forgotten how to talk about it in away that’s accessible to normal humans, let alone corporates with the attention span of a goldfish.
You don’t want to design programs or services yourself, nor should you create one just to please a corporate. But if you want to connect a corporate partner to your core work, you need that program or service to deliver what it promises and be able to demonstrate clearly the outcomes and impact. The best way to influence a programs team is to spend time with them. Visit a program observe and ask questions. Get to know their ambitions and challenges so you can tell the story more effectively with a corporate. Take a program expert to a corporate meeting so they can bring their insights and inspiration and hear what corporates need in return for support. You’ll help your program colleagues understand why you’re asking for timely reports or testimonials. You’ll become an ally in growing their work, not an annoying distraction from their efforts.
Strategy
It’s hard to persuade corporates to partner with you if your organisation doesn’t have a clear strategy and ambitious goals. You’re aiming for partnerships to last at least 3-5 years to maximise the value, so you need an organisational strategy that will guide you for the same time. But you probably not in a position to set the organisational strategy. That’s done by the CEO, leadership and board and handed down to you.
If you can’t articulate a clear strategic direction to a corporate, they’re unlikely to come on the journey with you. Without a map you’re just a tourist, hoping to bump into some interesting stuff along the way. You need to convert the CEO to be an advocate for partnerships. That could mean introducing her to key prospects, listening to your corporate advisory committee and testing the current organisational strategy with current partners. You can’t educate a CEO by yourself, as you won’t have the positional power. But they’re likely to listen to outside voices, even if they’re saying the same thing as you. You need the CEO to articulate clearly where the organisation is going, so you can find the corporates that help you get there. When the CEO understand how the corporate partner helps them deliver on those goals, they’re more likely to see the importance of partnerships and give you the support you need.
Marketing and communications
Is your website partner friendly? What do your communications say about your organisation? You may have identified some great fit corporate prospects but the external marketing, communications, branding and tone of voice are sending mixed messages. We know a great non-profit that works with young people- a valuable target audience for many corporates. But their website and social media are obsessed with educating the reader about the intricacies of mental health and latest academic research. The tone of voice and imagery is at odds with the inspiring work they do for young people. Similarly, a charity working in poverty and disadvantage chose to emphasise their evangelical Christian view of the world rather than their awesome solutions for homelessness.
You can’t dictate the strategy for marketing and communications but you absolutely need them to be aligned with your ambitions for partnerships. You can influence positively by getting them involved in your partnership thinking at the earliest stage. Share your prospect list with them, brainstorm ideas, introduce them to key people in marketing at your corporate partners. It will help them understand the corporate’s needs and which aspects of your non-profit’s value proposition resonate more strongly. It will provide the marketing team with a valuable external perspective on how their messages are being received. You’ll be able to reach out more confidently to your chosen corporate targets, knowing there’s a consistent and coherent story about your non-profit.
It’s tough having partnership goals that you can’t achieve by yourself and you can’t control the things you need to be successful. There will be times that your colleagues behave like toddlers after a bucket of red cordial. Acknowledging to yourself that you can’t control these elements will refocus your efforts on creative ways to influence them. You can get them to eat the broccoli but you’ll have to disguise it first.