Newsletter: Are Unrealistic Partnerships Goals Setting You Up to Fail? 😩 ; 11 Ways to Build Your Credibility with Prospects 🤩 ; More Nonprofits Should Experiment with ‘Dogfooding’ 🐶
The Chronicle of Philanthropy shared an interesting article last month titled Unrealistic Fundraising Expectations Are Causing Stress. Here's How to Set More Practical Goals.
The writer was Rasheeda Childress, Senior Editor for Fundraising with the publication. She's one of my faves!
Boy, is this advice needed in fundraising - particularly in corporate partnerships, right?
Let's apply some of Rasheeda's points to partnerships.
📈 Past is prologue. You can only know where you are headed by knowing where you have been. It's essential to look at the partnership data from the past three to five years to figure out what's a realistic goal for the upcoming year.
Using anything else to set your goals is just a shot in the dark.
If you are new to an organization and it has little data, your first job is to educate leadership on why data is important and how it should be collected moving forward. The other option is to obtain the data from another similar organization to help you set a rough baseline of expectations. Just make you are comparing 🍎 to 🍎.
Question: Are you using reliable data to predict future performance?
🏃🏽♂️ Activity matters. After setting some expectations, you must choose activities to help you achieve them. Again, being realistic matters. If, after initial research, you determine you have few warm leads for potential partners, you'll have to focus on different activities. Maybe instead of counting meetings and deals closed, you'll have to settle for the number of new subscribers to your corporate partnership newsletter.
Question: Are you tracking the right activities that are the current best indicators of success?
🔁 Collaboration counts. Corporate partnerships don't happen by themselves. It takes a team effort. Hiring a partnership person with a "Rolodex" doesn't work, as most initial partnership opportunities will come from people within the organization. If an organization expected me to do all the work, I would spend all my time looking for a new job.
Question: Are you working with others toward success, or are you expected to go it alone?
⏰ Things don't happen overnight. No kidding, right? Connecting, cultivating, and closing a partner takes months - maybe years. Short-termism is rampant in nonprofits, especially with corporate partnerships. A little while back, I shared that, in general, the B2B sales cycle requires no fewer than 11 interactions - ranging from emails to calls to meetings, etc. These things take time!
Question: Are you educating the leadership team on how much time and effort it takes to land a partnership?
⏳ Where's the real bottleneck? I often say that corporate partnerships are the RESULT of all the other things your organization excels in. It's the cherry on top of the sundae.
The problem in most organizations is not YOU or the corporate partnership program, per se. It's the organization. It's not committed to corporate partnerships. It's not clear on its mission. It's not investing in building its brand or becoming a magnet for opportunity - in corporate or anything else.
Question: What's really holding back your partnership team from succeeding? I'm biased: I don't thinks it's YOU (because you're a fricken supahstah! 🤩)
✍️ Partnership Notes
1. Retailers are bracing themselves for a challenging back-to-school shopping season. Now's the time to reach out to these folks to make the case that a partnership with you could make a tough season better for everyone.
2. Can we all agree on this?
"Credibility is a precious resource in sales — and the success of your sales efforts can hinge upon how well you establish and develop yours throughout your conversations."
But how do you enhance your credibility? Here are 11 ways, but #1 is critical: success stories. Let someone else do the talking!
3. How to do cause marketing with a business opening a new location.
4. I like the web page The Trevor Project created for its product partners. Instead of sharing ALL their case studies, they share just three, which I think is wicked smahht. If you give everything away on your website, businesses will be able to decide without you - and that's not good!
🤑 Marketing Your Cause
1. More nonprofits should experiment with 'dogfooding.' You'll learn a thing or two!
2. Add a little visual appeal to your appeals. It works!
3. Brands screwed up on Pride Month. Here's a step-by-step guide to NOT f-ing up Juneteenth.
And speaking of brands flubbing up their support for causes in general, PR pro Michelle Garrett offers advice on whether and how brands should work with causes. Scroll down for her advice on How Can Brands Do a Better Job Planning Marketing and PR Initiatives Around a Cause?
😎 Cool Jobs in Cause
1. Director of Corporate & Cause Partnerships, Autism Society of America, Rockville, MD ($100k - $115k)
2. Director, U.S. Corporate Partnerships, Operation Smile, Remote
3. Director, Strategic Partnerships, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN
🧠🍌 Brain Food
1. I'm a new subscriber. The New York Times launches a free, geo-targeted extreme weather newsletter.
2. Have a good idea you want to implement? Don't start by trying to convince everyone - or the skeptics. Start with this group instead. The key is building positive momentum.
3. Just how old are you getting? Use this to find out. It was sobering.
