Finding and Nurturing Effective Partnerships

The Nicholson Foundation worked to advance meaningful change in New Jersey’s safety net service systems. Its journey is described in Changing Systems, Changing Lives: Reflecting on 20 Years.

From the start, The Nicholson Foundation knew that forging partnerships as the centerpiece of our grantmaking investments was the best path for us to take. Over the years, we carefully selected grantee organizations to fund, and we nurtured those relationships through ongoing technical collaboration and regular review of progress. We also sought out other organizations, foundations, and state agencies and departments to join our work. Sometimes, it took considerable time and trial-and-error effort to find the right partners and the right project.

This approach had several advantages. Partnering brought diverse skills and experience to bear on a problem. This enhanced the likelihood that the project or initiative would achieve its aims and continue after our funding ended. It was good for us, too. It helped us hone our ideas and determine what was the best route for us to take in a particular issue. It also improved the Foundation’s visibility in New Jersey and enhanced our reputation as a committed player in the project’s focus area.

Our experiences in finding and nurturing effective partnerships generated a few key takeaways that might be useful to others who are engaged in similar work:

• Spend time and effort to find the right partner. It’s a wise investment. The right partner is one whose values are aligned with yours and who also sees the project as a priority. Use various strategies, such as recruiting a specific partner or issuing an open request for proposals.
• Talk to as many people as possible when starting new work. Learn about priority needs, local resources, and opportunities for action. This will help identify potential partners—both those within and beyond the groups with whom you usually work—who are ready to collaborate and generate real impact.
• Understand that potential partners may have various reasons for wanting to change policy or pursue programs. Take time to learn about these motivations, and build them into your planning. This will increase the chances of being able to enact the change you desire.
• Create a partnership that’s just the right size. Make it big enough to be inclusive but small enough to act efficiently.
• Acknowledge and respect the unique strengths and qualities of each partner. Having the same goals and being willing to work collaboratively is essential to effective, trust-based partnerships and enhances the likelihood of long-term success.
• Consider starting small with a partner. A modest initial project can provide time to determine whether the collaboration works, if modifications are needed, and whether it would be better to “go it alone.”

Learn More

• Read the other blogs in this Key Takeaways series:
  — Engaging with Government for Systems Change
  — Elevating Best Practices and Building Evidence
  — Investing in Organizational Nuts and Bolts
  — Tackling Complex Problems with Multiple and Complementary Solutions
  — Developing Future Leaders
• Read “A Framework for Creating Systems Change,” a paper by Drs. William Brown and Wynn Rosser. The paper presents a model for systems change that adapts and expands the Foundation’s approach, making it easily accessible to a broad audience and grounding it in the growing literature in this area. [Brown W, Rosser W. A Framework for Creating Systems Change. The Foundation Review, 2023;15(4):50-6.
• Receive or download a free copy of Changing Systems, Changing Lives: Reflecting on 20 Years. This book describes the 20-year journey of The Nicholson Foundation. Chapter 4 illustrates what’s possible by finding and nurturing effective partnerships. It describes how the Foundation:
  — Worked with one partner to carry out multiple projects over a period of years.
  — Collaborated with multiple partners to tackle one priority issue.
  — Explored several types of partnerships before eventually finding the right fit for us in an emerging area of interest.