Partner with Purpose by Steve Schmida is a step-by-step guide to planning, launching, managing, and growing cross-sector partnerships, illustrated with vivid real-life stories from the author’s work with companies around the world. It explains how to recognize when a cross-sector partnership is the right tool for tackling a business problem, how to find potential partners from beyond the for-profit sphere, and how to develop viable solutions to the wicked problem you face.
It describes the unique challenges you’ll face, from the differing vocabularies and assumptions employed by nonprofit leaders to the difficulties of reconciling visions among organizations with different values and goals. You’ll learn how the notorious “Valley of Partnership Death” has caused many promising projects to fail, and the four key steps smart leaders employ to survive it; and you’ll learn why internal buy-in is such a crucial factor in the success of any partnership, and the techniques smart managers use to achieve it.
Along the way, you’ll discover a host of powerful tools that can help you organize, govern, monitor, and measure the effectiveness of your partnership initiative, including the Project Concept Paper, the Partnership Scorecard, and more. Finally, you’ll learn how successful partnerships can be brought to scale, creating sustainable solutions that can generate impressive economic value for years to come while benefiting society and the environment.
