Hi Edith,

CGI was an amazing event. Such an energy around the idea of helping people! I see the scale of it increasing dramatically.

I think it is important to note that CGI is not trying to "get around" government or "provide cover" for government inaction. But sometimes governments just aren't stepping up, or don't see themselves as the proper channels, or problems cross borders... CGI is putting in place methods and partnerships capable of responding quickly when problems like these are bogging down assistance.

Responding to another point - PR assists funding, so yes it is important.

Responding to your question about innovation, I think it depends.

I'm not a firm believer in reinventing the wheel for the sake of innovation. Sometimes there are reasons things have been done a certain stodgy way for a long time

it works. Of course innovation that brings efficiencies and improves processes is important. But I've seen too many companies and organizations "innovate" themselves out of profitability and relevance. Fads can disguise themselves as innovation. In some organizations just passing along the wisdom and knowledge of the past is innovative and novel in itself. (Heh.)

But with that said, successful organizations certainly need to have the flexibility that allows them to be able to embrace innovative approaches when they do work.

Dave Johnson said, "I'm not a firm believer in reinventing the wheel for the sake of innovation."

And Bill Clinton once said during his presidency, "Nearly every problem has been solved by someone, somewhere. The frustration is that we can't seem to replicate those solutions anywhere else."

Both of these quotes illustrate perfectly why the organization I run, Global Gain, has been developing a new open-source framework and set of tools to enable social entrepreneurs, NGOs/CSOs, to adopt and adapt the existing solutions of others rather than re-invent the wheel. We call the whole process Adaptive Blueprinting (AB), because it first requires the organization that has created an innovative and proven program-model to create a relatively simple "blueprint" that can be transmitted to others in a way that makes sense. Since these blueprints have a high degree of built-in flexibility, partner organizations are free to adapt them based on local contexts.

John also had a great quote with respect to this point. "successful organizations certainly need to have the flexibility that allows them to be able to embrace innovative approaches when they do work." I would turn that around a bit and say that the creators of innovative approaches need to allow enough flexibility for partners to modify and adapt when they're willing to adopt the original approach.

We hope others will find Adaptive Blueprinting perfect partnership-building "tool", especially if the goal is scaling social impact by replicating proven ideas and models. And again, I should emphasize that it is an "open-source" idea, so if anyone is interested in learning more, please send me a message via Social Edge.

Thanks, Dave. You are right that President Clinton went out of his way to explain that CGI is not about replacing governments. However, CGI is now in its third year, and more people are asking about RESULTS generated from all of the commitments made in previous years (see Nancy Birsdall's reflections on the Center for Global Development blog). Rapid results, quick scale... are these things we can expect to see when working with governments? What do others think?

Rapid results and quick

but thoughtful and effective -- scale are some of the advantages that many NGOs bring to the table when it comes to building partnerships for social change. A constant theme -- at CGI and in general discourse -- is that no single actor can create change alone. Communities, NGOs, governments and partners with capital, must all come together in order to create sustainable partnerships that have the power to create long-term change. Check out the final session of Education Track at CGI; the moderator asks four social entrepreneurs -- Vicki Colbert, Andre Agassi, John Wood and Fazle Abed -- who their ideal partners would be to take their programs to the next level: http://video.clintonglobalinitiative.org/health_cast/player_cgi2007_nointro.cfm?id=3515

While I don't think there is a magic potion for effective partnerships, there are some key ingredients that make for better outcomes. A lot of it has to do with really doing your homework up front - doing some due diligence on the partnership, understanding partner cultures, pre-determining what will be measured and how, mapping out a plan for succuess, anticipating and suggesting contingency actions and, realistically, having a continuity or exit strategy for ineffective partnerships. All this behind, the real work of project management and constant communications can begin in earnest. From a corporate standpoint, key partnerships could command as much thought as a joint venture or M&A target, especially considering the million+ dollar funding and long term relationship such an agreement might entail. From the entrepreneurial/NGO standpoint, a corporate partner should be seriously scrutinized as well. There is a need for real honesty about capacity and for pre-establishing realistic expectations. For some, the potential to fund and scale up might be so enticing that a great idea is squandered with an ineffective partner who has unrealistic expectations. From a government standpoint, some agencies are better than others and the appropriateness of partnering with certain agencies in certain geographies, and the cultural sensitivities that might entail, should be weighed before going headlong into a regional partnership program. That's not to say that the partnering process should be overly bureaucratic - in time, each culture can establish a well developed process for selecting partners - but for the initial foray into partnerships, especially for organizations with limited partnering experience an ounce of caution is worth a pound of prevention against an ineffective partnership.

Like in finding the right marriage partner ... finding the appropriate partner for an SE requires numerous resources such as time, money and a common value system ... and over time the build-up of trust, care, compassion and love for mankind and planet.

What I have observed just by sitting on the wing ... and evaluating successful partnerships is that they are always driven by personal and internal agendas.

The challenge is in identifying what your prospective partner needs/(or wants) ... and what you need (or want) ... and then look for the common area of intended benefitiation as the WIN-WIN conponent.

To reach that status ... requires research, faith and determination.

Another interesting result that we have identified .. is the compromise made by many SEs and NGOs because funding requirements dictated the need to forge a partnership with organisations that may not have their vision and outputs at the core of the partnership.

Laurinda Seabra Empowerment Gateway

I agree that government is not the solution to every problem; however, in many cases, government is an important part of the solution.

The quandary comes in determining which part that should be - determining the role government will effectively be able to play in fulfilling the mission.

Successful partnerships involve harnessing the strengths and competencies of each of the members, while mitigating their weaknesses. Government agencies are very effective at directing large-scale resources towards a problem, but are often less agile and responsive than NGOs and private sector organizations. The question inevitably arises, how can we function within a partnership while still meeting our individual organizations' needs?

For a government agency, one of those needs is control and accountability over the process, which becomes difficult when allowing another organization to exercise creative innovation. But as Dave mentioned, how do you find the balance point between innovation and risk?

From this perspective, there are so many factors that interfere with productive partnerships - misinterpretation of the goals, power dynamics within the organization, differences in communication and management styles, political environment etc.

Consider the analogy of a football player on a championship team. While the goal of each player on the team is to win the game, each player also has his own personal objectives to meet - whether it's boosting his stats, demonstrating his skill to the college recruiter in the stands, or simply impressing a young lady on the sidelines. Each of those dynamics plays into how the player interacts with the team and ultimately how the team performs as a whole.

The same can be said of organizations. The individual objectives of an NGO, a major corporation, and a government agency are very different although they may be working to achieve the same mission.

The key to success here is identical to that of the football team - selecting your players wisely so that they work together without impeding each others' progress. Often, as organizational leaders, we are so enthusiastic about finding support for our projects that we fail to see the strategic consequences of their involvement.

Will the partners respect our values and vision? Are there too many "power players" in the mix that will create dissonance? Can we communicate effectively outside of our professional language and jargon?

Sometimes, the interference created by a dysfunctional partnership destroys any value that could have possibly been created by working together. Is it worth it to gain $1 million in funding, but lose control of the project? Is access to a great distribution network worth a 12-month delay in production? These are the questions we face, and sometimes it's a judgment call.

A new study published in the fall issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review made me think twice about the value of partnerships as more than either a route to either a run-of-the-mill, like-minded campaign or a "strange bedfellows" PR move. It's natural to assume that nonprofits that have managed their programs best and positioned their organization most prominently would seemingly be the most successful

according to this line of reasoning, these are the organizations most able make change happen.

Authors Heather McLeod Grant and Leslie Crutchfield find otherwise. They studied twelve "high-impact nonprofits" and found that their impact came less from how much these organizations built their own capacity and more from how well they leveraged the efforts of others. Here's an excerpt:

The secret to their success lies in how high-impact nonprofits mobilize every sector of society – government, business, nonprofits, and the public – to be a force for good. In other words, greatness has more to do with how nonprofits work outside the boundaries of their organizations than with how they manage their own internal operations. The high-impact nonprofits we studied are satisfied with building a “good enough” organization and then focusing their energy externally to catalyze largescale change.

The bottom line is that nonprofits should look outside their own organizations for ways to leverage greater impact. The authors distill six practices (i.e."Serve and Advocate," Make Markets Work")

applied in different ways to different degrees -- that characterize the work of their twelve high-impact examples.

I'm fascinated by two examples that aren't in the study. Sustainable Conservation is a San Francisco-based nonprofit environmental group that was formed with the express goal of "partnering with business, nonprofit, and government leaders to promote environmentally sound, yet cost-effective business practices," and it seems to be very good at this. And Ashoka pairs small social work NGOs working in poor neighborhoods with giant multinational cement company CEMEX to sell cement (and thus, permanent housing) to people who have had to make do with shacks, while providing the local NGOs (who serve as the distribution conduit for CEMEX) with a reliable revenue stream. Very cool partnerships.

Josh: McLeod Grant and Crutchfield's study is fascinating. They talk about nurturing networks as one of the key practices of high-impact nonprofits. CGI is all about networking, about putting together people that would likely never meet otherwise. Yesterday's New York Times coverage of CGI showcases these meetings with some great examples. While at CGI, I wondered about this question of access. Isn't a necessary key to partnerships to have ACCESS to certain venues, people and opportunities?

Unfortunately in developing countries to get something done one needs the government to be involved. It is therefore necesarry to get a Cabinet Minister or his or her Permanent Secretary to " buy" into the program. The fewer government people ( and academics) involved the greater chance for the initiative to be successful

I don't agree that you NEED to have goverment support to have impact ... you need to have mass buy-in of your values and benefitiation program by all including your target benefitiaries.

Governments and academics tend to polute and at times derail the goals and objectives of SEs by too much interference, private agendas ... not to mention self-interest.

Laurinda Seabra

If an organization has a partnership plan of value that needs funding, how does one apply for help to the Clinton Global Initiative?

Hi Steve: I suggest you go to the CGI website FAQ section and also go to My Commitment page. You should find the info you need. However, CGI is not a funding agency.

A Kiswahili proverb, "umoja ni nguvu, utengano ni udhahifu,"..."united we stand, separated we fall" sums Clinton Global Initiative. When two come together for the sake of doing good for the communities we live in, the results are tremendous.

Having led our grassroots volunteer led organization, Delaware Kenya Association, www.delka.org, from nothing to something in 3 years, I can attest to the fact that indeed partnerships are the way to go. In partnering with individuals and other groups, we have been able to bring hope to thousands of people, and this is the foundation on which we stand.

Partnerships key ingredients in my view should include a genuine desire to pursue a common cause, not holding back from being a part of something bigger than one self, realizing that through numbers, we can win, seeing one's project as a project for us all versus for one individual or group, and being there to support a group or individual that has supported your project when theirs comes along.

Governments can be involved to some extend in partnerships as long as they are made aware that if they stall the process, they will be left out. It's time governments especially in developing nations started to see the important work that individuals and groups are doing to support their development work. The least they can do is make resources and manpower available to do this work on a timely manner. That old thinking by some government officials of "what is in it for me" should be replaced with right thinking which simply says, "I am doing this to better my country."

Indeed some partnerships can generate much needed public-relations, and this is good. A small organization like ours can get a boost from people of high stature like Clinton, who by the mere fact that they have endorsed a project or given time from their busy schedule to be a keynote speaker, then this can generate not only financial resources for the project, but also extensive publicity which will turn to more people being aware of a cause and joining to offer a hand. Ever heard of the ripple effect?

Change management at the grass root level works wonders for the marginalized poor. Our experiments in India have proved this. It needs the support of Governments and public relations to project the benefits and bring people and governments into limelight. Sustainability is a long term factor that needs institutionalization from day one.

Thanks to all the contributors so far; this conversation is very rich! I'd like to ask a question about scale. Are there any good examples out there of groups who have leveraged partnerships to help bring their initiatives to scale (regional, national, international)?

Yes, we did it with hearing aids( solar powered , made by workers who are deaf.) We gave technology and training for free to other NGO's. All of us would co-op purchase and or develop new technologies which we would share and save. It brought the cost of hearing aids and batteries from over $600 to under $100. Within next 2 years we will soon have 6 independent sustainable programs in 6 developing countries, Botswana, Brazil, Mexico, Jordan, Pakistan and Vietnam

Howard: this is very interesting. In your experience, what were the most important factors that made your partnership successful? We could greatly benefit from some insights. Thanks!

Hi Edith

We are currently forging "formal" alliances in an endeavour to gain access to support for an International and a pilot country (South Africa)initiative.

We have tested our model and methodologies and we are now ready for a full scale international drive planned to take +- 24 months.

Our program which is an hybrid operation looks at entreprise development as a platform to sustainability and growth.

Kind regards

Laurinda Seabra

Laurinda, I am interested in learning more about your enterprise development program with a possibility of partnering to do a program in Kenya.

Thanks.

Erastus

Hi Edith, I suppose for partnerships to work effectively there must be a mutual trust and respect; and building on that foundation, the parties need to see that the relationship is going to be mutually beneficial.Each member will bring someting to the table that will ramp up the achievements of each of the other participants and that of the partnership as a whole. I read somewhere the following .. " ..The founding concept of the company( Hewlett Packard) was not so much what but who.They were best friends in graduate school and simply wanted to work together and create a company with people who shared their values and standards."

Responding to the comment:

"I don't agree that you NEED to have goverment support to have impact ... you need to have mass buy-in of your values and benefitiation program by all including your target benefitiaries."

While it is clear that every situation is different and it is clear that there are situations in which going around illegitimate or oppressive governments is to the advantage of doing good work, there are serious risks to operating this way generally.

NGOs, private partners and donor governments especially, have shown that they are no more reliable than donor governments in many cases in providing long-term sustainable funding and planning to reach development targets. Where there is an opportunity to include (and hold accountable) government agencies (ministries of health, education etc…) these opportunities should be sought.

The alternative is a fragmented approach, which means less partnership and less impact. Described as “cherry picking” by Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Minister of Education of Afghanistan this approach not only does not strengthen future capacity it increases the risk of duplication, and irrelevance in assistance.

Chairman of the Board of the Intel Corporation, Craig R. Barrett, described Intel’s education investments at CGI:

“We go in and talk to the minister of education… we say we have a teacher training program… we run a pilot … we are a bunch of dumb engineers, we have to measure everything we do.”

The first thing they do is LISTEN and the last thing is MEASURE IMPACT based on goals that make sense for their agenda as well as for the needs of the host ministry. This model is the ideal and initial efforts should at the very least seriously attempt these critical pieces.

Koleen: I think you make an important point in regards to the danger of "cherry picking." On the other hand, I can certainly attest to how difficult it is for governments in developing countries to be coordinating with multiple donors and stakeholders (bilateral, multilateral, private, etc) and to do so efficiently. This, among others, is often cited as the reason why international NGOs and private donors by-pass the national and local governments: to get things done faster.

How can these two concrete realities--the importance of working with governments and governments' limitations--be addressed in a way that nurtures long term sustainability?

Hi Edith - thanks for inviting me to join in on the conversation. I attended the first CGI as a volunteer two years ago and was greatly inspired by the event and its purpose. What struck me from the event are two things: Emphasis on public-private partnerships and the commitments desk. To elaborate and address your questions:

• The emphasis on public-private partnerships - something that I didn't think much about before but learned about at the event; the importance of having the private sector consider development-related issues as part of a triple bottom line (profits, community and environmental issues). In fact, this inspired me to write my senior thesis on corporate social responsibility and community welfare. I attempted to show that companies benefit in profit from partnering with local NGOs and sometimes governments to improve the welfare of the communities in which they work. This was an ambitious goal, to say the least, because there is little time series data on whether such initiatives have any kind of causal effect on the bottom line.

However, to address your questions, I strongly feel that in a society which is rapidly changing and presenting new social challenges, new and unprecedented alliances are critical. A holistic approach to this is necessary and I agree with previous writers that involving various stakeholders in partnerships, including the government, is very important. Charles Fombrun, an expert on corporate social responsibility (CSR), has written quite a bit about this and I encourage everyone to check out the website of his organization: the Reputation Institute: http://www.reputationinstitute.com/main/home.php

I think this also addresses Edith's 4th question about whether partnerships motived by public relations interests are good or bad. Personally, whenever something positive comes out of a partnership (with no negative externalities), I'm not sure if the motives are that important. But take a look at the 'Partners for Progress" report from OECD(http://www.oecd.org/document/37/0,3343,en_2649_34459_2429925_1_1_1_1,00.html), if you can - it's a report written up after a meeting in 2000 about corporate social responsibility and describes why/how partnerships can be beneficial. Based on my research, what I call "The Incentive Network" for corporations to take part in welfare-related activities include: Reputation & Consumer Opinions, Financial Performance, Customer Base and Employee Relations. This combination of factors can convince a corporation that undertaking community development activities can, in fact, be a good thing for the company. Partnerships are a big part of this effort.

Some examples are replicable but some are not. I'm always wary of cookie-cutter approach in discourse about sustainable models. How can the same development model in a tiny 5000 person village in Rwanda be replicable in the whole country? (referencing the Millennium Village) And when does NGO intervention substitute government responsibilities instead of complementing them? These are very big questions! However, examples of successful private-public partnerships: J.P.Morgan and the Morgan Community Development corporation (great social work done in Harlem that was not exclusive with its bottom line) Tata Corporation in India: A 50+ year old history of working with local NGOs throughout India for community welfare Anglo-American Mining Company - which partnered with government-supported health services and NGOs to provide HIV services to employees infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. It estimated that up to 40% of lost time at the company's Zimbabwean operations is due to indirect or direct effects of the epidemic and took steps to avoid associated extra costs.

Finally, I'd like to note that many non-profits are taking a hybrid non-profit/for-profit approach to addressing development issues. One example is the provision of services to social responsible private sector companies (non-profit side) and venture capital funds (for-profit side). An emerging concept is the idea of private sector growth as key for poverty-alleviation. One innovative non-profit which is driven by this value is Good Morning Africa (GMA), which seeks to assist small to middle-sized companies that are socially responsible in African countries (it's just started only in Ghana but aims to expand to South Africa and Rwanda). After selecting Ghanaian companies that need assistance and are socially responsible in associated communities, it provides them with assistance to address bottlenecks in production, marketing, human resources and other business challenges. It also educates Ghanaian entrepreneurs on international trade issues, expansion into new markets and mobilizes on-call support from interested and dedicated MBAs and successful business leaders abroad. In Ghana, GMA's success rests on its partnership with private business associations such as the Ghanaian Private Enterprise Foundation. Please take a look at it at www.goodmorningafrica.org.

Finally, the second item that inspired me at the first CGI was the "Commitments Desk" and the emphasis on taking action following the event. In fact, this was the trigger behind the "Commitments Desk" in the Youth Pavilion at 2006 International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada. At this conference, we collected 346 measurable commitments from delegates related to HIV/AIDS and young people. Currently, the secretariat of the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GYCA - www.youthaidscoalition.org) is following up on these commitments. However, we've found that it is very challenging to do the follow up and I have yet to hear from CGI folks about their follow up experience. At future CGIs, it would be great to see some results and impact from previous commitments. Edith - did you see any of this at the event? Even on the commitments website, there is a lot about making commitments, but not very much about the impact of previous commitments. I'm wary about people at CGI making commitments that are really disguises for activities and projects they would have done anyway - CGI or not - and commitments that are just done for the sake of getting them done and announcing them, rather than commitments that are sensible. This has some relevance to your question about innovation - While important, sometimes there are initiatives out there that are already doing the same things and it's good to stop and think about whether it makes sense to intervene with something new or just improve on what is already done.

I really appreciated reading the thoughtful range of comments on partnerships and their role in development. I am most familiar with the international health partnerships and I am sure that colors my thinking about global partners. (There is an article by an HSPH professor on this topic which I think captures some of the nuances of global health partnerships, especially between public and private partners including drug companies. http://www.globalhealth.harvard.edu/hcpds/partnerbook/front.PDF)

Many development problems are too complex for any single sector or institution to address them alone. Most development issues require collaboration across sectors. Any partnership needs to be cognizant of other institutional actors and their agendas. But I don't necessarily think that the government has to be an operational member of every partnership. (Of course, the partnerships CANNOT operate as though the government doesn't exist.)

That said, I am inclined to agree with Josh that partnerships even between NGOs fail to perform well. (In too many cases, partnerships produce something that is less than the sum of the parts.) I attribute part of this failure to the forces that lead to partnerships. In my experience, institutions may often form partnerships because donors require it and not because institutional leaders deeply believe in the logic of partnership to solve the problem at hand. Working with partners - especially those in diverse sectors - requires an effort and if the parties involved are not really, really committed to the logic of the partnership, the effort can become a bit of a farce. I think it is good that external forces can drive organizations to try partnerships, but I wish that donors would place a higher premium on the time and facilitation skills required to form really effective partnerships. I do believe that when partnerships work, they can achieve amazing results.

I agree with Brian that there is no magic bullet to forming workable partnerships. It requires mindfulness and sensitivity to programmatic needs, institutional, and personal agendas.

I entered the world of SE through meeting an American who'd pitched the idea of economic developme