Nonprofits / For-profits Partnerships

Thanks for starting a discussion on this issue, Patrick.

Since the 80's when I co-founded and led a 30 person commercial consultancy in Europe that tithed 10% of our profits and 10% of our staff time to non-profit activities, I have known the direct benefits of such partnerships. More recently in the USA, for the last three years I've consulted full time to the Freeplay Foundation and Freeplay Energy Plc and currently project manage for the Foundation two rural economic development pilot initiatives in Rwanda and Zambia, where the synergies of partnership between the two Freeplays and other non-profit partners are really exciting.

I wholeheartedly support your recommendation to focus on tangible benefits, while also sensing that many benefits are non-tangible and none the less important for being so. The feel-good factor for people working for a profit-making venture through becoming involved with a non-profit can be hugely motivating. Opportunities to participate in a non-profit's activities and fieldwork offer fresh perspectives. Company staff often learn to look with fresh eyes and work more enthusiastically and creatively within their own business as a result of this contact. In the other direction, close working links with a staff from a commercial organization can remind people working for non-profits in a subtle way about the importance of the bottom line and the need to deliver projects efficiently and effectively to challenging deadlines.

Somewhat differently than you, perhaps, I think process and goal are both important and indeed inextricably interlinked: final agreements in any MOA can be vital if and when we need to remind ourselves exactly what we did agree when we started on the journey together, as for example in a learning review or to clarify points of apparent difference that develop along the path. At the same time MOAs can only be as good as the communication process that creates them and thereafter supports their implementation. As you stress in your piece, relationship is key - at all interfaces of both partnership organizations.

I'm heartened by the extent to which many of us may be waking up again to a systemic view of the universe: seeing the profit/non-profit parts as different facets of the same fundamental societal whole and focusing on the flows between these parts helps us to move beyond the limited perspectives of either. Building bridges between domains which have so much to gain from close cooperation is hugely satisfying work. Managing a profit/non-profit relationship in daily action can also challenge us to address more deeply how we can create and maintain a healthy balance between personal self-interest and public good.

Thanks again Patrick!

Thanks for the praise and welcome to the conversation! It is always welcome. Of course the final document is important, but after doing many of these I have found that what happens is that while it is being negotiated, the project gets going or gets modified and all parties have in their heads what the deal is. But you are right, sometimes you do have to refer back. It is especially important when new people join the play,

Thanks all of your for sharing your insights. There is so much to learn. My name is John Mary, a College Student at St. John's University in Minnesota, USA. I will graduate this spring with degree in Computer Science and Philosophy. I am originally from Uganda. We have a small organization supporting orphans, youth, and women in rural Uganda, especially in communities most affected by the AIDS epidemic. Our goal is to create educational and sustainable development opportunities through set up of an orphans school, community library, computer center, and clinic. I am wondering there are organization- non-profit or for-profit that might be interested in this type of work. I can share with you an over who I am and the work I am involved with:

I am deeply passionate about helping people, especially children who have no one to support them. Over the years I have developed a renewed commitment to peace and social justice causes. I am involved with AIDS awareness programs on campus, Genocide awareness and prevention, Amnesty International, and few other activities. I started the Global AIDS Awareness student organization and an International AIDS Serving learning program for college students to live and volunteer with communities in East Africa as a way of promoting global solidarity. The program involves working with AIDS support organizations helping out at orphanages, AIDS clinics, nutrition centers, women's groups, and youth group activities. Our first trip in 2005 was an eye opener; we realized these communities were heavily affected by the AIDS epidemic and burdened by increasing numbers of orphans.

We thought we couldnt just sit back and do nothing. So, we started to look for help to support kids in school. Eventually, we realized perhaps we would be able to help more kids if we build a school- other than sponsoring individual kids. The idea seemed logical, so we drew up plans and construction started early 2006 (a structure of 14 rooms).

The Hope Integrated Academy (www.hopeacademyuganda.org) will consist of a Vocational School, a Community Library, a Computer Center, and a Clinic. The school is located in Masaka, south western Uganda. This is a much needed resource because there are many youth in the villages who do not have jobs because they have any skills. They either dropped out of school because they lost parents or the parents are too poor to send them to school. Once they reach adulthood, they start families of their own--with no income, they can not afford to send their kids to school either; that's how the cycle of poverty is perpetrated. We hope by providing practical skills, we can gradually break this cycle. Skills training will include Agricultura, carpentry, tailoring, computer skills, hair dressing, candle and shoe making, entrepreneural leadership, small business management, construction, etc.

The library and computer center will provide access to education resources to students and teachers from over 15 schools in the area. The majority of rural schools don't have libraries or computer labs. Students learn only from lectures and notes taken in class. From my personal experience, I found that challenging; I did go through poor rural school in Uganda. We hope to be able to bring technology and internet to the rural poor.

The school is still under construction, you can pictures on the website. It still needs a roof, windows, doors, and concrete floor. The project has received most of its funding from college students' fundraising.

We formed the Uganda Rural Fund USA, Inc (URF|USA www,ugandaruralcommunitysupport.org) to support this work in an a formal structure. URF is registered as 501c3 charity in the USA and in Uganda. We operate an orphanage, support a womens' and youth group, a brick making project, piggery project, and various farming projects. We are still a very small organization, started in late 2005. There has been however, a strong attraction toward our project by volunteers from all over the world. We will grow as we partner with more individuals and organization. We partnered with Engineers without Border who are helping us with the water/sanitation and power project for the school and neighboring villages.

Thanks you for allowing me to share with you about my work. For any comments or questions, please reply here or feel free to contact me at jmlugemwa@gmail.com Thanks.

Peace and God bless you!

Hi Patrick,

We are a social mission focused (connecting corporate behavior with corporate profit) for profit venture (alonovo.com) now providing revenue share with over 90 cause based organizations and have learned a great deal from the experience. The points you raise are critical, however I have found that one must be very adaptable and patient working within the NGO/cause-based space. In the private sector world synergistic relationships are accelerated by "time to market" whereas in the nonprofit space it takes more time to build a credible relationship predicated upon trust and mission alignment.

It is good to make sure the MOA covers some performance objectives and that they are revisited at least quarterly to make sure the relationship is working, or to see if adjustments can be made to provide greater benefit for all.

Kind Regards, George

George Thank you for a wise observation. It is true that often the NPO and NGO relationship building takes ore time and the varying time scales have to be reconciled. I have found that good socoal relationships are very important - drinks, lunch, etc. This seems to be especialy true whenworking ith start ups peopled by the under 30 set. A lot of relationship building gets done after work over beer.

Dear Patrick,

I very well believe that it is not the sole rsponsibility of NPO to do social work. Particulary in the present scenireio of global warming where different renewable technologies are the key and further specifically poor peopel living in developing world using free fire wood ( from forest ) need the technology which can help them to use less wood as well as give them better indoor atmosphere. To do this FPO needs the networking and financial strenghth ( they gets grants / charity funds easily than FPO). To achieve the target of spreading good environment freinedly technology FPO will not be able to reach or match the strenght of NPO.

We are very samll FPO organisation and have low cost technologies for cook stove. This is utmost friendly to the user and to the environmnet. Seeing the potential we wants to associate with NPO who have mission to gave better and healty in door atmosphere to the poor.

I see that partnership is the the way to reach and spread these type of activities.

Thanks Patrick for starting the discussion. I might gain some experience from this. Regards Ramesh

Very happy to have you as part of the community. I would recommend that you contact the LEAD office in New Dehli for leads and help with NPO partners. You can find them at 66, Hemkunt Colony Near Nehru Place New Delhi 110048 Tel. 91 11 26225790, 92 & 41638440 Fax 91 11 26225791

E-mail : office@leadindia.org Web Site: www.leadindia.org

Thanks Patrick for the LEAD contact I will be contacting them. Regards, Ramesh

I recently read a book titled The Spider and the Starfish and in one chapter the role of a catalyst, or intermediary, was emphasized. This was a person who had an expansive network and was constantly connecting people he knew with others in his network.

I think your observations about how relationships take a long time to develop, and how the face to face networking if of critical importance is true. However, I think we're all learning to build relationships via the Internet, too.

I started posting on Social Edge a couple of years ago, but over time I've gotten to know Charles, Patrick, Victor and have even hosted a couple of discussions. Thus, this is a form of cyber relationship building.

I host a conference in Chicago twice a year (http://www.tutormentorconference.org) and have built into the registration process an on-line attendee list that people can view in advance of the conference to see who else is attending. This can help them make face to face connections for when they attend. It can also help people who don't attend connect with those who do. I'll keep this up after the conference as a tool to help people stay connected so that relationships continue to grow from conference to conference.

I'd like to encourage more people to take this role. The people who help each other can be living in different parts of a big city, and different parts of a big world. We still need to be introduced and someone still needs to help us build relationships.