Boosting Impact: 3 Creative Ways Nonprofits Can Partner For Success

when you're starting or growing a new nonprofit organization collaborations and Partnerships can go a long way in helping you get your feet on the ground they can even bring in new supporters volunteers or donors in this video I'm going to share a new social impact partnership framework that I developed and talk you through three different types of Partnerships and how they can benefit your [Music] organization welcome or welcome back I'm Amber Melanie Smith I'm a nonprofit founder and social entrepreneur and speaker and I love making these videos to help people change the world and figure out the ins and outs of starting a nonprofit social Enterprise or do other great work in other ways I hope that you find this video is helpful don't forget to check out the many many videos I have now over 200 videos in my library of uh content on topics like fundraising the process to start a nonprofit board govern and more also don't forget to check out my website founder Toof full time.com where I have some articles and some online course resources that might be able to help you out if you're trying to start a nonprofit or develop a fundraising strategy all right let's get into our topic today now I do talk about Partnerships in one of my other videos um which is all about partnering with other organizations but I want to do something a little bit different in this video because since I made that video I I have observed a handful of very interesting and Innovative approaches to Partnerships that I would like to share with you today because I really think that they could help you get creative and think more about how certain types of collaborations can help you get the word out about one of your uh projects or new organizations but I do want to recap here uh the foundation of what a good partnership looks like and what you need in order to prepare for a good partnership because that will be a good uh layer of ground for what we're going to talk about today now to form an effective partnership with any other organization and I'm talking nonprofit business government entity Faith group anyone you need a clear understanding of three things and actually why don't you take out a piece of paper right now and grab something to write with and be thinking about these as I'm talking through them the first thing you need is an understanding of your organization's assets and um uh what you bring to the table your strengths and your resources so this is going to be basically what you can offer an organization from your side so go ahead and write down three of those second you need a sense of your organization's current challenges what are the areas where your organization is missing some resources or missing some information or missing some access to a certain Community or or group of stakeholders or missing some type of resource go ahead and write down three challenges or things that you're missing as well this as you can imagine is going to be what you need from another organization in a partnership and the third thing you need a clear sense of in order to form an effective partnership with any other organization is a sense of your organization's values so the things that your organization believes in the way it has committed to operating and moving through the world so values might look like something like um fairness or a commitment to um well-being for your team or it could be uh a high level of transparency for your audience it could be any of these things but basically rules uh moral and ethical rules that your organization has committed to operate by and the reason this is really important is because a big component of an effective partnership is alignment of values if you come into a partnership situation and your values are not the same as another organization then you might not be able to make decisions as a collaborative Duo that are going to be mutually beneficial and are going to be good for each other's brand so write down these values hopefully you already know what they are from you know thinking about these in an earlier stage of your organization development but write these down and just have them in mind for when you're approaching another Organization for partnership now I'm going to introduce you to the framework I created by sharing three partnership styles for organizations creating social impact they are innovating synergizing and optimizing and they're each designed to bring Mutual benefit to two or more organizations as they try to create positive social and Community change for each of these types of Partnerships I'm going to get into what the partnership is and exactly how it works I will get into a real life example of this type of partnership in action and then I will offer some tips for doing this kind of partnership with another organization if that's something you think will meet your needs and throughout I'd love for you to be challenging yourself by brainstorming some new examples or ideas for Partnerships too the first type of partnership style that we're going to discuss is the innovating partner the innovating partner is when two or more organizations come together and through their combined activities they produce a totally new and sometimes unexpected outcome or impact so the two organizations might have similar or even very very different missions but combined they create something completely Innovative and not something either organization was already doing or offering I'm going to give you a real life example that is super cool it involves a pay what you can nonprofit restaurant and a litter pickup organization so right off the bat you're probably thinking what in the world do these two missions have in common what could they possibly do together and the answer is something really awesome and Innovative so here's the story a place at the table is a nonprofit pay what you can restaurant where anyone regardless of means can come in and they can get a meal they can either pay full price for the meal or they can get a discounted price or donate their time for a meal um or they can use a a little card that gets them a free meal so if you are someone who's experiencing homelessness or hardship or in a crisis you can get a meal here and it's restaurant quality food you can choose from the menu so it's great um and they uh of course as part of this model welcome a lot of people who are current ly um unemployed or might be experiencing um homelessness or other types of hardships so they are already serving that population and they frequently engage with that population in their restaurant then you have organization number two which is called the Great Raleigh cleanup and their mission is just like the name suggests to go around the city of Raleigh North Carolina and pick up litter wherever they can find it so they'll do volunteer group cleanups um and they'll partner with schools and institutions and try to get their campuses cleaned up Etc so these two organizations came together and had an interesting idea what if we could get more people cleaning up litter while also helping people who might be unemployed or experiencing homelessness and crisis by giving them a meaningful purposeful activity to do and paying them a living wage so they can be picking up litter as a sort of part-time gig to earn Revenue to hopefully get themselves out of the crisis that they might be experiencing so we have a place at the table that is already engaging with this population and then we have the great Raleigh cleanup who has an activity that this population can do and they get together and they propose this to the city and the City Grants them some funding to be able to pay people currently experiencing joblessness or homelessness to go pickup litter around the city isn't that awesome so you have people who need employment generating a living wage by keeping the city clean so everyone is really winning in this situation and this is an innovating type of partnership because neither organization was offering this as a program or service before but together they realize there is an opportunity to combine their missions for an extra outcome that they weren't previously providing so some tips on how you can have a partnership like this also I think the first thing is you've got to get the lay of the land in your community if you don't already know of the other organizations in your area or what their missions or activities are you need to join social impact networking groups there are lots of nonprofit leadership groups out in cities there are lots of opportunities to find others who might be doing similar or totally different work but you really need to understand the landscape because you need that information to know who might be viable Partners in the future so definitely take the time to learn about other organizations with a variety of missions and form relationships with them Reach Out grab a cup of coffee engage at events that you're both at just take the time to form these relationships even if you're not ready to form an innovating partnership you would be surprised at the information learning and community building that you can do that would benefit your organization especially if it's a newer organization by getting to know the other entities in your community also next is in a safe space for collaboration so maybe inside one of these social impact networking groups you want to be able to share some of the questions and challenges that you might be experiencing as an organization so these are the things that I asked you to write down before what are your current challenges what are some gaps in resources that you might have so being able to talk about these transparently and openly in a safe place like one of these networking groups can really help people listen to what your needs are and allow for a moment where a light bulb might go off in their mind where they might say hey you know what I know of someone or something or even my organization can help you with that and knowing in advance what you can bring to the table what knowledge resources skills connections you can bring to the table when you're asking for help too when you're putting your challenges out there can create a really great reciproc oral relationship and help you build that relationship further so at this point you're kind of playing a game of Go Fish you know that old card game where you say I have this kind of fish I think that's how it goes and I need this kind of fish or this number of fish or whatever um this number card and uh you um say you have it someone else has the thing you need and you trade and so you have this reciprocal back and forth relationship obviously I haven't played goish in a while but I'm pretty sure I'm close I'd love for you to train your brain to practice thinking of innovating types of Partnerships and you can do this by randomly choosing two seemingly unconnected missions or projects and then just challenging yourself to come up with creative ways they might come together and do something cool I have an example for you for you to practice with okay so we're going to take um an animal rescue nonprofit and then we're going to take a food bank how could these two organizations form an innovating partnership together think about it for a few seconds all right what did you think of drop it in the comments below but I will tell you one idea I had that almost immediately came to mind was a new collaborative pet food pantry you know because the people that the food bank might be serving might also be the people that an animal rescue nonprofit needs to provide extra support to to be able to take care of their dogs right so they have that potential audience in common but the food bank probably has much bigger reach than the animal rescue just because food banks tend to well one be better funded than animal rescues but also reach a wider population through networks of of churches and Faith groups and other organizations so if the animal rescue group could partner with the food bank and have a little area inside the food bank that's specific to pet food then it might be a win-win there they might be able to reach those families and perhaps even reduce the number of animal um abandonment cases because people can better take care of the pets that they have but definitely share your own ideas in the comments the the second type of partnership I want to talk about is a synergizing partnership now a synergizing partnership is one that solves a unique problem for one organization while meeting an existing need for the other organization so they might have different or even similar missions but they're going to have uh complimentary services or approaches here so here's one real life example um activate good a nonprofit that mobilizes people to volunteer in their Community wanted to bring people together of different political affiliations to bond while volunteering because when people volunteer together they can overcome differences and barriers to connection so activate good wanted to mobilize people but they needed to find a volunteer location that could accommodate the group of volunteers and also be a cause that all political affiliations are likely to get behind so they partnered with their local food bank to come in with a group of volunteers and sort potatoes and sort food to go out to feed people who are hungry in neighborhoods across the state now this is a synergizing partnership because uh for activate good a unique problem or challenge was solved they needed a venue that could accommodate the special type of volunteer project that they were trying to put together and for the food bank it met an existing need because they always need volunteers to come in and organize and sort the food so that I can go out to the families that they serve so how would you do this kind of partnership well similarly to the innovating kind of partnership you want to start with a strong understanding of the other organizations in your community that you serve who are they what do they do what are the basics of the types of programming they offer secondly you want to think about what exists programs your organization might have that might be Amplified or Inc have increased visibility by partnering with another organization so let's say your organization is doing some strategy planning and you're trying to think about how can we reach new populations or deepen the impact of this existing program that we have um you want to write down or or think through an assessment of what other organizations you've met you've engaged within your community um what assets they might have or skills or or access to different populations they might have that you don't already have write them out because being able to visually see that is going to help you brainstorm how you would connect your existing program to the resources that that other organization has so let's do a little bit of practice around this let's say your organization is trying to come up with a new program or expand your existing program I want you to list out what you would need in order to be successful in either launching that new program or deepening the engagement or impact of your current program what what do you need is it access to this group of people is it um more activity on social media is it a certain amount of dollars that you need to raise is it access to a building what could you need in order to be successful um then you want to like I said before list out the strengths and assets of the organizations you've met and kind of look and see where there might be a match but let's try one example I'm going to do a really easy one this time let's say there is uh a a youth leadership nonprofit who needs opportunities for their youth to learn more about the environment and then you have a tree planting nonprofit that is always lacking for volunteers how might you bring them together okay that was an easy one but obviously you could have the youth leadership nonprofit form groups to go volunteer for the tree planting nonprofit to meet their volunteer need you could even go further with it you could have the youth leadership nonprofit come up with a a recruitment plan to reach more schools and more youth to come in and help the tree planting nonprofit you could go nuts with this so um synergizing partnership the third type of partnership I'm going to talk about is an optimizing partner and this is where um partnering makes an impact more efficient and effective for two organizations with complimentary missions so they already have programs but they realize that coming together to do something a project event or activity or even long-term partnership is just going to make their impact deeper and bigger so here is a great real life example of this for a recent Martin Luther King Day of Service two organizations actually more than two I think came together uh one was an organization called Note in the Pocket that provides clothing to kids and families uh so that the kids can go to school with you know good clothing and the other one is called the green chair project they take in used furniture refurbish it and get it out to furnish uh homes of families who have gone through some kind of Crisis or just moving into their homes after a bout of uh being unhoused so they furnish those um houses to make them a home so these organizations realized that they are serving a very similar population and if they came together they could serve them more efficiently so for the MLK Junior Day of Service they held an event where people could drop off donations for either of the partnering organizations in one place this made it a lot more efficient for the donors to be able to just gather everything in their house that they needed whether it's some furniture or some clothing for kids and bring it to one spot and in doing so they were able to streamline their ability to take in donations now this was just one event but I happen to know these organizations partner regularly so it's an example of how they've optimized their existing services and missions to have a broader impact across more people so again you want to start with uh an assessment of how you could increase the reach and impact of your existing programs let's say you have a strategy or a strategic plan to Triple the number of families you serve within the next 2 years how would partnering with another organization with a complimentary or similar mission help you to achieve that so in the case of Note in the Pocket they were able to increase the number of donations of clothing they could bring in so that they could serve more kids through their partnership with green chair and vice versa so what do you need that a complimentary or similar organization has and what can you offer that organization to make it a mutually beneficial partnership and again just like before really knowing who is already out there in your community doing what is critical first step to form an effective partnership because you need to know who your potential partners are so what other organizations out there are having a similar mission to yours or are serving a Sim similar population to yours whether it's kids or families or rescue animals who's serving the same population but perhaps in a different way all right let's do another example to practice okay so you have um a mobile clinic that performs how visits and they have identified that many of their clients at the homes that they're serving have nutritional deficiencies and then you have another organization that does community gardening how would you bring them together to optimize their services for a great partnership think about it okay I don't know if this was another one that was a bit too easy for you but when I I had off the top of my head was they could partner to distribute vegetables or fruit harvested from the community gardens through the mobile clinic so when the mobile clinic is going around and doing house visits they could also deliver healthy ve vegetables or fruit because the clinic has the transportation process already down and are reaching people who need it and the garden has the produce that those people need all right so so I thought this was a fun and creative exercise I hope you did too I'm curious what are some of the other types of Partnerships or um examples of partnership that we talked about that are just kind of on your mind right now please share in the comments let's have a fun little ideation brainstorm here to wrap things up here don't forget if you are a nonprofit or a social Enterprise or you're thinking of starting one and you need some help figuring out how to get started how to develop a sustainable fundraising strategy check out my website founder to full time.com where I have those articles and those online resources that might be able to help you out at this stage I also have a newsletter you can subscribe at the link that's under this video where I'll send out tips and strategies and also funding opportunities for organizations that um might need some funding support don't forget to subscribe to that and you can opt out anytime it's not bringing value to you and third I have a group on Facebook book called change the world or bust where we have I think like 6,000 people now from around the world trying to make an impact in their own ways we would love to have you join our little community and share what you're working on to make the world a better place but that's all I have for you today I hope to see you next time and once again I'm Amber Melanie Smith bye

Channel: Amber Melanie Smith

Views: 886

Keywords: starting a nonprofit, non profit, nonprofit management, nonprofit organization, nonprofit partnership, starting a nonprofit organization, nonprofit, nonprofits, nonprofit management 101, partnerships, non profit organization marketing, nonprofit fundraising, nonprofit marketing, nonprofit fundraising ideas, partnerships explained, not for profit

Id: 7fGoGYofIsk

Length: 23min 55sec (1435 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024