By: Mollye Rhea
One of the most frequent questions For Momentum receives is: How should a nonprofit structure corporate partnership teams for optimal results? There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Corporate partnership teams within nonprofit organizations vary in structure. They’re shaped by factors such as:
- Organizational size
- Partnership objectives
- Available resources
No matter the structure, we know that dedicated staffing and resources for corporate partnership stewardship plays a pivotal role in an organization’s ability to secure and steward corporate partners. In fact, in our benchmark study of 50 Best in Class cause campaigns, 84% of nonprofit organizations reported having a dedicated team involved in developing the cause campaign.
From over two decades of experience working with corporate partnership teams, we know that to achieve success in corporate partnerships, it is essential to establish a strong foundation, which involves creating a team structure filled with a variety of roles that best equips your organization to sign on and steward long-term corporate partners.
Take a look at this overview of the most common structures and team makeups to help guide you toward the right approach for your organization.
Common Structures
Corporate partnership roles typically find their place within a nonprofit’s development structure, primarily as a fundraising function. Commonly, these teams are structured based on one of three focus areas.
- Industry: Team members may be divided by industry area of focus, particularly if the partnership opportunities have a programmatic theme. For example, if the organization is seeking partnership engagement for their STEM education program, they will likely focus their outreach on technology companies. It can be helpful to have partnership team members who are well versed in the technology industry—its particularities, unique challenges, benefits and opportunities to build a broad network.
- Type of Fundraising: Partnership teams can also be structured in a way that each team member’s expertise is concentrated in a particular sector of fundraising or partnership type:
- Corporate giving
- Employee engagement
- Foundation grants
- In-kind or cause marketing
- Geographic location: Some of the teams For Momentum works with are divided by geographic region. This can help equitably assign prospective companies to business development team members, reducing confusion and conflict. This structure also provides the opportunity for team members to connect with their partner company points of contact in person more easily, enhancing relationship building.
Team Makeup
Within these overall partnership frameworks, two fundamental roles are at work: business development and account management. Having two roles with different focus areas can help them each specialize. Choosing how to integrate these roles to handle partnerships depends on an organization’s unique circumstances. Each offering has its advantages and drawbacks.
Business Development
The business development role is primarily focused on building a sales pipeline and selling in new corporate partnerships.
Pros
- Expansion focus: Devotes efforts to acquiring new corporate partners.
- Growth potential: Opens doors to diverse funding sources and opportunities.
- Fresh perspective: Approaches partnerships with innovative ideas.
Challenges
- Resource-intensive: Requires substantial resources for prospect identification, outreach and relationship initiation.
- Relationship building: May come with difficulties in establishing deep connections given the need for high prospect volume.
Account Management
This role, much as the name suggests, manages the corporate partnership accounts that an organization has already established.
Pros
- Relationship nurturing: Focuses on building and maintaining strong connections with current partners.
- Sustainable funding: Ensures consistent revenue from existing partnerships.
- In-depth understanding: Offers opportunities to build extensive knowledge about partners and their needs.
Challenges
- Depth and breadth of assignment: Entails juggling many operational factors for partnership success and deftly navigating partnership dynamics both internally and with clients.
- Fresh ideas: Often relies on renewal strategies and struggles to upsell or introduce new partnership activations.
Common Challenges in Corporate Partnership Team Structures
Across all the nonprofit organizations For Momentum has supported and consistent within every team structure we’ve encountered, some common challenges persist.
When establishing your partnership team structure, be sure to plan for these dynamics.
How and when to transition accounts from business development to account management.
Transitioning a new partner from business development to account management can be one of the hardest pieces to get right.
Account management leadership typically shifts from the business development team to the account management team once. (A commitment has been signed, and this transition marks the beginning of partner stewardship, focusing on nurturing and maintaining the relationship).
Pro Tip: We recommend engaging the account management lead earlier in the process so they can influence the final partnership plans and establish client relationships earlier, making the business development lead’s exit more seamless.
Finding time to innovate and think beyond the contract at hand.
In our latest Taking the Pulse of Partnership surveys, both nonprofits and companies ranked developing unique or fresh campaign ideas as one of their top five challenges in building partnerships. Innovation is key to keeping partners happy and engaged long-term.
Pro Tip: Setting up a consistent brainstorming time to hear from teammates and develop new activation ideas can help ensure nonprofits are carving out time for innovation to bubble up.
Dedicating resources for the administrative aspects of stewardship support.
These tasks are time-consuming yet vital:
- CRM entry and data tracking
- Thank you notes
- Proactive mission updates
- Check-ins
Consider taking the tasks off your business development and account management team members and delegating them to a support role.
Pro Tip: Building support roles into partnership team budgets can help manage time-consuming tracking and follow-up tasks and keep frontline team members focused on their respective areas of responsibility.
If your organization needs guidance for improving your corporate partnership team structure or training, For Momentum is here to help.
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