Choosing the right nonprofit partner for your business requires careful attention to three basic steps. If you have been placed in charge of this task, you should follow these rules to the letter. Your company is counting on you to make this situation work, and you can ensure great success if you take this process seriously. A strong non profit partner can help your companies public relations image as well as your groups corporate responsibility.
#1: Ignore The Word Play
Some businesses and businessmen want to use different words to describe their relationship with you. They want to be known as collaborators or merger partners, but you are all partners when everyone signs on the dotted line. Forget about the fancy language that is tossed about in meetings so that you can get down to what really matters in this partnership.
#2: Research Potential Partners
You must ensure that you know everything about your new nonprofit partner. A nonprofit is not managed in the same way as your business. They take in cash in different ways, file their taxes in different ways and report their earnings in different ways. You need to know their financial position, how much money they have in the bank, how often their staff turns over, what their history with other partnerships is and what you really think they want from you. You cannot negotiate a proper relationship without all this information. People that go to the bargaining table without the right information often get burned by their new nonprofit partner.
#3: Try Everything
It will not hurt you to try many different opportunities. You may try everything from a company that sends products overseas to a company that offers services in your hometown. Considering all your options is a much healthier way of coming to a decision. You will likely come to a decision much more slowly, but quality nonprofit partners will be willing to wait for you to make your choice.
#4: Level The Playing Field
The relationship that you create with a nonprofit partner must be balanced in every way. You are not there to buoy the failing finances of a nonprofit. You are there to support a nonprofit in their mission. Ensure that they are putting as much sweat in the work as you are.
Your choice of a new nonprofit partner will impact the direction of your company. You are the person who has been told to make things work, and you must take the process seriously so that you are not fired if things do not pan out.
