What’s the one thing that parents of small children crave more than caffeine? It’s not expensive baby equipment or handmade toys. It’s time. Just 10 precious minutes to go to the bathroom in peace. Or even better, a full night’s sleep without your precious offspring wanting a drink, a blanket or a cuddle at 2am.
It’s end of financial year in Australia, and this arbitrary deadline causes fundraisers and partnership people an anxiety-fuelled spiral of activity, hope and self-flagellation. Time is like that flaky friend who never texts back when you need them most – unpredictable, unreliable, yet you can’t live without them. The way we approach time in partnerships can be the difference between success or despair. Here’s how.
Time to build
Partnerships are strategic investments made by corporates to get the social impact and commercial outcomes they seek. Partners expect to build relationships with you, so they can benefit from your expertise, insights and guidance. They’re not experts in social impact, so they want to learn from you and build something together. We recently interviewed Beyond Blue and Mission Australia about their million-dollar partnerships with Australia Post and Great Southern Bank. Crucially, they spent the first year of the partnership getting to know each other deeply and shaping the partnership together. It enabled them to bring in different stakeholders across their organisations and build multiple layers of relationships, not rely on one or two key people to carry the whole load.
The more peer-to-peer relationships, the stickier the partnership becomes and the greater potential for higher value. It’s the opposite of those frustrating ‘charity of year’ partnerships which are simply extended speed dates. They are one hit wonders, with no real relationships behind them and they suck your energy and resources dry. It’s the difference between a quick fling and a slow-burn romance that leads to moving in together, a dog, and a joint Netflix account.
We talk more about how to build layered, strategic partnerships like these in our book Partnerships Reimagined. If you’re trying to move away from transactional relationships and create long-term value, it’s a practical guide to help you shift your approach.
Time is dictated by your partner
This is a common point of friction with your CEO and leadership. They want partnership income to fall neatly into your organisation’s financial year and program cycles. Unfortunately, most corporates didn’t get the memo. Partnerships are usually dictated by their budget cycles, sales campaigns or approval processes- not yours. And there’s not much you can do to change it. You can learn about their preferred timing and show up ready, but no amount of pleading or pushing from your CEO will force them into a decision before they’re ready. It’s like cajoling a toddler to eat green vegetables. You can put it on their plate every day, but they’ll eat it when they’re good and ready.
The head of sustainability at healthcare giant BUPA says that partnerships are view as long term strategic investments. That means they’re planned at least three years ahead to ensure that the investment is allocated properly. If you want a partnership with BUPA, start now for 2028.
Time as an opportunity
You can use time to your advantage if you learn about your corporate partner’s business peaks and troughs. If you think about the major events we celebrate: Mother’s day, Valentine’s Day, national days etc, many of them are co-opted or created by corporates to drive sales. Christmas is the peak frenzy for shopping and consumption. Take a look at your partner’s sales cycles and identify opportunities to align with their major campaigns or add value in quiet phases. Review twelve months of their social media activity across all platforms and you’ll see patterns. Could your own campaign offer a way to boost their sales and awareness in the off-season when they’re struggling to have something to communicate to their customers? Do you see them sharing virtual signalling posts in key times such as Lest We Forget at ANZAC Day or allyship messages during Pride Month, but have nothing to back them up? This might be an opportunity to offer the corporate some authentic support behind a cause, not just shallow marketing.
Time as a precious asset
We’d all like more time in the day. No matter how many time management techniques we try, there’s always a sense that the hours get away from us. Quality time is a phrase beloved of time-poor parents, but in the case of partnerships, there is a commercial value on your time. How many multi-stakeholder meetings do you really need to attend? How many of those could have simply been an email, keeping you in the loop?
Partnerships take time to nurture and you want to spend those hours on the best opportunities, not the energy suckers. If you want more strategic partnerships, then be ruthless about time spent on the lower level business partners who want time and attention for a paltry return. Either harvest them or shift them into a more systematised business supporter category, where they get minimal relationship management. Equally value destroying is the time spent being ‘the department of free stuff’. Your event team may need tables for their community fundraiser, but it’s cheaper to buy them from the hardware store than you cold-calling corporates to scrounge them for free. Your time is a precious asset and you need to guard it closely.
Time is either your biggest enemy or your secret weapon. Partnership people know success takes time – usually longer than your CEO wants, and definitely longer than a toddler’s nap. Use it wisely, and you’ll reap the rewards long after the kids are grown. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get that bathroom break all to yourself.