Partnerships 101: Exploring New Ways of Collaborating for Optimal Results

Even those adept at forming partnerships can make exciting new discoveries, found Ron Smith, Chief of Corporate Partnerships at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Over the past year, Smith and his team have nurtured two partnership ventures.

In the first partnership venture, the IRS recently observed that local Salvation Army chapters were partners in many of its 250-plus Earned Income Tax Credit Community Coalitions. The emerging national partnership between the IRS and the Salvation Army's national office serves local chapters by providing an explanation of what their work in local coalitions looks like and by creating interest in engaging more Salvation Army chapters as coalition members.

"It is the reverse of starting at the national level and driving a program down. We found it on the ground, moved it up to the national level, and then back down to locals (to tell the success story)," explained Smith.

The second emerging partnership began when three organizations with long-established relationships recognized how their missions and resources overlapped. The Veteran's of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW), with many posts in communities across the country, and AARP Tax-Aide, which serves low and middle income people with special attention to those 60+, work in many of the same communities. Through the partnership, AARP Tax-Aide sets up tax preparation sites at local VFW Posts to provide tax preparation services to military families of those deployed and expanding to eligible retirees. The IRS provides tax preparation software to AARP Tax-Aide and acts as a consultant to the up-and-coming partnership.

Out of these promising partnerships, several lessons emerged. Effective partnerships are formed by:

• Being attentive. Whether by paying attention to what local chapters are doing or finding out something new about long-time friends, being attentive can yield exciting opportunities.

• Building on trusting relationships. Seek out opportunities to meet with other organizations informally (i.e. conferences, networking events). It's in these informal settings that formal partnerships can develop as the levels of trust and understanding increase, explained Smith.

• Seeing overlaps in mission, resources, and needs. Learn not to assume you know everything about old allies.

• Viewing each partnership as a journey. Let go of expectations that a partnership will emerge fully formed. One of the strengths of the VFW, AARP Tax-Aide collaboration, said Smith, is that participants view it as a journey; they started with a few pilot sites and will expand further as their successes multiply.

• Being adaptable. Be willing to adapt a program to meet the needs of different communities. Regular AARP Tax-Aide programs run for the course of the tax season, which isn't appropriate for all VFW Posts. Subsequently, one VFW Post conducted a weekend tax help session. Now, the AARP Tax-Aide program is sharing this idea among other posts, explained the VFW's Mike Gormalley, Assistant Adjutant General-Programs/Special Projects.

• Not being bound to a particular view of how partnerships should begin. The two examples in this story illustrate that partnerships can begin under a variety of circumstances.

• Accepting different roles for different partnerships. By releasing itself from the expectation that it has to be on center stage, an organization is free to participate in new partnerships as their time, energy, and resources best dictate.

For more information on developing effective partnerships, request a free copy of Connect America guide to The Power of Partnerships, from Nonprofit.Gov@PointsofLight.org.