Partnerships: a Win-Win for Growing Your Nonprofit Community Program

If it seems like you are in a rut with your community program, whether you have a limited number of participants, need a bigger location, or have a good idea for an activity, but do not have enough leaders or resources to implement it, then there is a good solution for your problems: join in a partnership.

Partnerships can help with these, and other issues, by combining the strengths of two or more organizations with each other, to make up for any weaknesses. They can especially be useful in youth programs.

Here is an example:

Years ago, I worked for a nonprofit organization that taught leadership skills to underserved youth. We had a good program, but needed to increase our number of participants to make more of an impact in the community.

We decided to develop a major partnership with a very reputable and large youth mentoring program. To give you an idea of how the partnership would work, and benefit both parties, here are some of the reasons and parameters that we were working with:

Responsibilities of our organization:

·       Recruit mentors and mentees

·       Orientation

·       Provide training or program materials

·       Review ongoing status reports

·       Recognize and show appreciation for participants

Responsibilities of the other organization:

·       Perform screening measures

·       Match mentors with mentees

·       Orientation and training

·       Provide Match Specialist

·       Provide ongoing status reports

·       Provide marketing support

·       Recognize and show appreciation for participants

How the Partnership Would Benefit Participants

• • Improvements
  o Overall academic performance
  o Quality of class work
  o Number of assignments turned in
  o Serious school infractions
  o Feeling more competent academically o Skipping school less

How the Partnership Would Benefit Our Program Overall

·       Reputable

·       Proven System

·       Experience

·       Support

·       Communication

One of the key things to remember about forming a partnership is that both parties should bring something to the table. In this example, the organization that I worked for provided an established program, as well as the materials, and potential participants. The organization that we partnered with provided a proven system of screening, matching, and support.

In this example, you can see that each organization had important responsibilities in the proposed partnership. They also defined measurable outcomes that would result from the partnership, with the participating underserved youth benefitting greatly from it.

Also, long-term benefits were expected from the partnership, with our organization benefitting from the other organization’s reputation and experience, among other strengths. The partnership was not completed, due to our organization having to close before it could be implemented, but it is easy to see how we were working on a solid and equitable partnership of our organizations’ programs.