Social Enterprise Collaboration and Partnerships

Being a social enterprise does not mean that you are in the social change movement alone.  There are several partnerships that can be formed to better enhance the delivery of your services and the networks you operate within.  Typically, social enterprises become so wrapped up in raising funds and focusing on their own organizational survival (especially in the current economic state) that the idea of collaboration and partnerships becomes a distant and unrealistic alternative.  Due to this self created isolation, many social enterprises (and nonprofits) lose out on some of the bigger investments and philanthropy because their organizational brand is too small.  This is when partnering with other organizations and sharing some of the costs and responsibilities could be beneficial.  Seeing that most social enterprises and nonprofit organizations are seeking social change, there should not be such a stigma attached to partnering with other like organizations to greater expand your organization's reach.
 
There are various opportunities that small social enterprises can explore when trying to determine the best way to collaborate with another organization.  The first of which would be to consider reaching out to your competition to see if the two joined forces could come together and collectively seek funding.  Most social enterprise organizations have a competitor that produces like services, and in a traditional model this would be the organization that you would consider a risk to available resources.  However, if the two organizations worked together to create the same social change the possibility to achieve greater results is increased.
 
A relationship such as this takes time.  It takes time to develop the trust necessary to make a competitor collaboration function.  There has to be several initial connections made to discuss and feel each other out.  A greater understanding of each other's missions has to be discovered, and it has to be determined if personal egos can be set aside for the greater good.  Contractual and legal obligations have to be discussed to establish how funds will be distributed and clarifying legal responsibility.  Organizational controls will have to be determined as well and how the joint venture will manage and oversee the quality of the services being provided.  However, once all of these factors have been addressed, the two organizations can join together and apply for greater funding and collectively make a difference.
 
Taking a step back from fully collaborating with a competitive organization, would be to find complementary partnerships within the sector.  This involves developing relationships with organizations that are not your direct competition, but offer services that might compliment what you are already doing.  For example, if you are operating a social enterprise that offers job placement to ex-convicts, you might have future plans to offer literacy courses and GED classes.  Instead of waiting for the revenue to start that branch of your enterprise, you could look for existing organizations that already offer those services and collaborate with them to offer a broader more collective set of services.

A social entrepreneur can also seek to find organizations that offer similar services on a grander scale and team up with them to better offer their services.  This form of collaboration is particularly effective for small organizations that are seeking larger commercial companies to provide some form of funding assistance or specialty skill set.  Working with larger companies that share your direct market could serve beneficial for both parties.  As the small social enterprise, you are receiving either monetary support or industry expertise.  The larger organization is receiving positive publicity by being associated with your cause and access to additional members of your shared market.  

The process of collaboration and partnering is a big step and can be a rather daunting task; however, the trick is to make your organizational brand appealing to others so that selling the joint venture will not be that hard.  It should also be recognized that just because a social enterprise (nonprofit) chooses to partner with an outside company does not mean they are sacrificing their mission or core organizational values.  It means the contrary, they are ultra focused on their mission, recognize their limitations  and are willing to take the added step of asking for help to ensure their mission gets executed.
 
That's pretty smart if you ask me, but what do you think?

Photo Courtesy of: communitywealth.com