Nonprofit Performance 360 Issue 12

MARK S A SMITH Nonprofit Executive Skills

Building Sustainable Strategic Public–Private Partnerships

As you’ve read in thismagazine,there are somany ways to extend the reach of your organization through public-private partnerships. Done right, everybody wins: the agencies, the strategic partners, members, the community, and your association. Let’s go one step further and extend the benefits even more deeply to your members. Broker the Strategic Relationships Your organization has the power to open doors that your individual members can’t. Start with a partnership where you can bring together, manage, and create expanding value for all involved. If the partnership can’t support your business model or the mission of all involved, it’s not going to work, no matter how much you want it to. Strategy First Strategy answers the questions about what all of the players want to accomplish, and why they want to do so. A strategic partnership plan aligns as much of the individual what and why as possible.The tighter the alignment, the more valuable the strategic partnership, and the more likely it will become sustainable. Here’s a list of 10 reasons to create alignment. The more you can identify and put into play, the

more likely the partnership will generate value for all involved. 1. Increase profits, income, revenue, etc. How can your collaboration create more value for all involved? 2. Increase member satisfaction. How can members get more of the why for being a part of the organization? 3. Increase resources. Can you bring more assets and resources to each of the players? 4. Increase expertise. Can you augment and expand the ability of all players? 5. Introduction to new members and markets. How can each player expand their network and reach? 6. Fill ability gaps. Can all players improve their ability to achieve their objectives? 7. Fill credibility gaps. Can your association bring more credibility, authority, and respect to the public player, and vice versa? 8. Create synergy. What’s the exponential effect of synergy, creating a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts? 9. Create new products and services. How can this partnership bring new offerings to members?

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