Walking the Talk of Social-Private Partnerships for Social Impact

More and more often, you hear people talking of social-private partnerships as a powerful tool to amplify social impact. How do you walk the talk making big corporations and small local NGOs collaborate effectively?

Last week in Venice, I had the opportunity to join NetWorks 2022, The Human Safety Net yearly summit that I contributed to designing. They have been three intensive days of expert presentations, case studies, and groupworks, with 200 people. The foundation focuses on two areas: refugees’ economic empowerment and early childhood development. Their network already connects 62 NGOs from 24 countries.

What did I learn there?

There is a huge potential in developing partnerships across the private and the social sector, with a few key elements to keep in mind to get the best out of it.

1-??NGOs, do not just look for money.

If you are an NGO reaching out to a private investor or a corporate philanthropic foundation exclusively?looking for funding, you miss the point and you may end up trapped in an unbalanced relationship of power. The real boost to your impact comes when you engage on a different level. Explore with an open mind what working together for a common goal could look like.

You may consider, for example, the technical skills a private company can provide (IT, legal, marketing, but also facilitation skills, database management, HR…). More people directly involved in your impact work, also mean higher engagement toward the mission!

You can engage the company's employees to amplify your voice for advocacy, fundraising, or recruitment campaigns. Or take advantage of spaces, buildings, and other assets the organization may be willing to offer.

Finally, leverage their potential to access government, universities, other private companies, and experts to establish a higher-level network of people supporting your cause and to connect with other NGOs working on the same challenges.

2-??Private companies, build partnerships both for sustainability and innovation.

Private investors should know by now that giving money it's not enough to lead in the purpose economy and incorporate Sustainability and ESG in their strategy.

It's an ongoing process of understanding what "positive impact" means and fine-tuning how to achieve it. If you want to partner with the social sector, don't just look for someone who is doing nice things on the ground to fund them. Listen to them deeply, and let them support you in understanding beneficiaries' needs also to explore innovative solutions in your product portfolio. Do not consider NGOs as your beneficiaries. They should rather be your innovation partners!

Let NGOs contribute to keeping your staff engaged and motivated towards sustainable goals. Discuss M&E and impact reports' datasets, not to find beauty metrics to share but to become, together with the NGOs, learning organizations.

As Ayla Goksel , CEO of Ozyegin Social Investment, said during the summit, “Impact — to be meaningful —?must be lasting and significant. Unrestricted giving doesn’t only mean unrestricted money, but also unrestricted power to choose what to measure and what to do”.

3-??Align on values and purpose before jumping into programming.

80% of the impact is achieved if you have clarity on what you want to achieve — added Ayla Goksel.

The partnership will flow smoothly and reach win-win results only if you build shared vision, language, and expectations — as emerged from participants during breakout rooms.

Engage in personal conversations, because most projects are the same but people are unique. You trust people, not projects.

4- Let data help you!?

MEL (Monitoring, evaluation. and learning) should rather be LME: decide what you want to learn first!

During NetWorks 2022, Andrew Bollington shared many practical tips. Here is a great underestimated one: “Never forget you are standing on the shoulders of giants." There’s plenty of research already available (see for example this website about education evidence) that you can use, contribute to, compare, localize, or gain inspiration from. Already existing datasets will help you to ask the right questions and evaluate your impact both on a larger scale, and in a longer timeframe.

Last but not least, Rukmini Banerji , the CEO of Pratham. Her keynote speech at NetWorks provided laughter, inspiration, and insights. While her organization is enormously contributing to improving education in India and beyond, she is incredibly humble, and this is one of my favorite quotes about MEL: “Monitoring and evaluation also help you see where you really fit in, understand what's the small piece of the challenge that with your limited resources you can address, and where you should honestly let someone else do it."

It reminds me of something the Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate, Wangari Maathai, once said: "I’m very conscious of the fact that you can’t do it alone. It’s teamwork. When you do it alone you run the risk that when you are no longer there, nobody else will do it".

Thanks, The Human Safety Net . It was great to see you in action and collaborate with you!