Partnership Approach

Our approach to partnerships involves a combination of process, frameworks, and tools, underpinned by some fundamental beliefs about partnerships. We also recognize that your situation is unique.

That’s why our approach is flexible; we’ll work with you wherever you are in your partnership journey.

Our Beliefs

  • Partnering makes you stronger
    When everyone plays to their strengths, you can achieve much more together than alone
  • The best partners have shared values and intent
    Up-front alignment of motivations is essential to long-term success
  • People make partnerships work
    Having the right people, with the right skills and desire to make it work is critical

Steps in partnering

(click on buttons to see more detail)


Invite new Partners
Exit

Explore & Develop

This phase will inform your decision on whether to partner, and who to partner with.

 

Assess opportunity or issue to be addressed

Includes assessment of scope, background and potential impact of the partnership

Evaluate existing partnerships

In-depth look at effectiveness, achievements & history of your current partnerships

 

Identify potential investors, entrepreneurs and other partners

Includes entities from across the private, public & social sectors.

Initial engagement of potential partners

Structure & Build

Now that you’ve decided to proceed, we help co-create and co-design your partnership plan.

 

Explore different partnership models and provide options

Identify value add / given by each partner

Establish joint and individual value each partner wants to receive

Identify roles and responsibilities of each partner

 

Establish objectives, strategies, tactics and metrics

Begin making concrete plans for future implementation

Identify ongoing communications processes and governance models

Include reporting/documentation requirements

Implement & Manage

During this phase, we help you implement and manage the partnership.

 

Advise and assist on implementation

Track project progress versus objectives

Make sure resources are properly deployed

Help course-correct if project is off-track

 

Assess how well the team is working

Address gaps in partnership capability

Ensure stakeholders are up-to-date and engaged

Help supervise governance and reporting

Evaluate

Now that the partnership has run its initial course, it’s time to assess how well you’ve done and decide the way forward.

 

Conduct a qualitative/quantitative evaluation of the partnership vs. its goals

What were the key learnings?

What value was created for each partner?

 

Make recommendations for next phase of partnership

Discuss options and decide way forward with key stakeholders

Scale or Exit

During this phase, we focus on expanding the partnership or making a thoughtful exit.

 

Scale the partnership

Embedding the partnership in the organization

Loop back into phase 1 of explore / develop

OR

 

Sunset the partnership

Develop an exit strategy and plan

Emphasis on communications and stakeholder management