How can non-profit leaders create successful partnerships with other organizations?

When exploring partnerships, I look for organizations that are mission-aligned but have complementary skills and resources. Partnerships based on shared values and complementary capabilities lead to the most productive and rewarding collaborations. Being thoughtful and strategic when identifying potential partners sets the foundation for executing our missions more effectively together.

When introducing yourself to possible partners, I think it's helpful to do share as specifically as possible why you want to connect. Whether it is a shared vision, values, or impact or complementary skills or challenges you are tackling, sharing the specifics will help potential partners understand why you have a potential connection in your work. This specificity helps you build rapport and trust quickly because the other person can identify with a common connection.

As innovation facilitator of 100+ innovation projects, I suggest the COOPERA METHOD: Combining Open and Owned Innovation through External Resources and Activities: 1. Contextualize: Identify specific challenges for open innovation. 2. Observe: Scan for potential collaborators, and technological & market trends. 3. Orient: Determine the type of collaboration: partnerships, outsourcing, licensing, or other forms. 4. Organize: Establish the necessary organizational structures and processes. 5. Prepare: Identify potential external partners and assess their capabilities, expertise, and alignment. 6. Execute: Engage with external partners to develop innovative solutions. 7. Reflect and Adapt: Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness.

A step before negotiating and formalizing is a process of alignment. Partnerships can often be complex relationships and it's critical at the start of the process to engage and have a deeper discussion about cultures, work processes, defined responsibilities, and agreed-upon measures of success.

I recommend setting up regular check-in meetings or calls with partner organizations to discuss progress, troubleshoot challenges, and recalibrate if needed. It's important to coordinate closely on resource allocation, activity timelines, and messaging so that the partnership activities come together seamlessly. I also advise documenting processes and creating tracking tools to monitor partner engagement, program outputs, and progress towards goals. This could include participant surveys, activity logs, or platform analytics. Tracking progress can help identify opportunities for improvement and demonstrate impact to stakeholders.

Don't forget that your partner has other priorities and projects in flight. That's why it's helpful to stay in the loop with them and keep your initiative top-of-mind! Schedule joint meetings on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on what kinds of initiatives are in flight. In these joint meetings, your goal is to identify potential blockers and address them ahead of time so that you can continue to make progress as a nonprofit. And, set metrics alongside your partner! At Product Teacher, we partner with multiple career-oriented nonprofits to provide career resources, and a key metric that we measure is "number of people benefitted." That way, we can celebrate progress, provide news releases, and identify ideas for further improvement.

When setting up the partnership, it's helpful to discuss evaluations up front. After all, you don't want anyone to be surprised! Make sure that you and your partner are aligned on the cadence of evaluations, and that you're aligned on the agenda for each evaluation. Also, be sure to stress that the goal of these periodic evaluations isn't to pass judgment - instead, the goal is to celebrate progress and identify areas of additional growth, so that you both can maximize your positive impact and achieve your organizational objectives.

After the partnership achieves its goals, take time to highlight its impact and bring partners together to celebrate. This validates everyone's hard work and reminds partners of the power of collaborating. Send personal notes of appreciation and share success stories on social media and in newsletters. These efforts humanize partnerships and inspire future collaboration. Partnerships can be challenging, but celebrating milestones and sustaining connections transforms transactional associations into enduring relationships where non-profits and partners evolve together. Consistent recognition and outreach are key to realizing the full, long-term potential of partnerships.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of periodic evaluation and assessment. It’s during these review sessions that you get to check the “health status “ of the partnership, address any concerns, discuss new innovative ideas, track milestones and celebrate wins. They help to keep the finger on the pulse

Start small before expanding. Pilot a limited partnership on a single initiative first to test working dynamics before committing to a larger-scale collaboration. Start-small successes build trust. With open communication, strategic alignment and flexibility, nonprofits can leverage outside resources and expertise through win-win partnerships.