Finding Your Match: Partnership-Building for African Non-Profits

By Angela Umoru-David
ABUJA, Nov 21 2024 – It is an already established truth that building partnerships is one of the single most effective ways for African non-profits to attract funding and deepen their impact. So, as an addendum to this article by Tafadzwa and I, here is a guide to finding your match.

Indeed, choosing an organisation to collaborate with can be similar to deciding on a life partner. It does not require the same life commitment but a wrong partnership can significantly hurt your reputation with donors, the trust you have from the community(ies) and even the faith your team members have in you. In some situations, the consequences are not so dire. Perhaps, it may only sidetrack you, forcing you to forge into areas you probably did not intend, and making you lose time or put years of hard work at risk.

So, in broad strokes, how can you find the right partner for your work as an African civil society organisation (CSO) or nonprofit?

1. Put your House in Order: Organisations are often judged on the strength of their corporate governance. While the size of an organisation may influence how robust its processes and procedures are, what is paramount is that irrespective of the size, there is a system and culture of accountability and transparency. The most solid path towards establishing broad community partnerships that ensure long-term grassroots support revolve around legitimacy and structure, as evidenced in your policies, leadership composition, accountability measures and organisational culture. This may seem like an obvious point but African non-profits often start informally as a small initiative to address a problem in the community. Over time, that small initiative morphs into a registered non-governmental organisation, whose leadership is made up of close friends and family members. Even if this works to get the organisation operational, it does not work in the long term. At the barest minimum, every nonprofit should have a diverse and functional board of directors/trustees, well-articulated vision, values and objectives, strategic goals and action plans. These benchmarks help you streamline what kind of partner(s) you need, when you should approach them and how you want to collaborate with them.
2. Be Willing to Collaborate, not Compete: For too long, the funding pool in Africa has pit nonprofits against one another. However, to tap the benefits of partnerships, organisations must be willing to call a truce, and work together in an open, honest relationship. Yet, with so much distrust already being the marker of the nonprofit space, how do we move forward? It really begins with having a different mindset. If more organisations adopt the idea that collaboration, and not competition is the way forward then we will have made considerable progress. But this is not a perfect world and there will always be unscrupulous people so the next few points should give you some protection.
3. Find your Strategic Match: While certain collaborations may be short-term, all partnerships should be strategic (irrespective of time frame). This means that there should be congruence in values, approach to work, complementary (not necessarily exact) thematic areas of work and proven record of value. Before engaging with a prospective partner, it is important to consider what you can also offer the partnering organisation. What would be helpful is to have a predetermined checklist with some must-haves and a few criteria that might be flexible. This also means creating an internal standard for excellence that all prospective partners must abide by. This is why point (1) is too important. If you are not clear about who you are as an organisation or your needs, how will you recognise an organisation that matches your partner profile?
4. Start Small and Take it Slow: You can start from your circle, with organisations that align with your values and whose leadership you can vouch for to a certain degree. Even at that, do not be quick to commit to major projects or sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) without reading the fine print. You can also start with projects that may not require funding (because this often has higher stakes) but things like knowledge/data-sharing, staff exchanges etc. may be somewhere to begin. These low-hanging fruits help you get a feel of what kind of organisation you are dealing with. Lastly, it goes without saying that you request a ‘get-to-know-you’ meeting where you share your histories, policies and procedures with each other (yes, much like a first date) then you can go from there. It is important that you do not accept a partnership under duress and if the organisation refuses to honour this request, then it is possible that they are not the right match for you.
5. Be Diverse and Inclusive in your Search: Too often nonprofit organisations struggle to catch the attention of the more established entities, forgetting that there might be a host of other organisations doing impressive work and who might be reliable partners. It is advisable to cast a wide net. The fact that an organisation is small (or even smaller than yours) does not negate the value they could offer. You can also make an open call for partnerships, highlighting your interest area(s), what you bring to the table and an overview of the kind of organisation you want.

Ultimately, you should remember that the point of finding a partner is to achieve your strategic goals and ensure the sustainability of your organisation while contributing to another organisation. Approaching partnership-building from this perspective strengthens the network of non-profits across the Continent, helps us leverage our internal wealth of resources and weans us off our over-dependence on external funding.

Angela Umoru-David is a creative social impact advocate whose experience cuts across journalism, program design and corporate/development communications, and aims to capture a plurality of views that positively influence the African narrative