First, let’s face it: We rarely achieve impact at scale without collaborators and partners. Bringing on new stakeholders is crucial to success.
Second, let’s acknowledge what many of us have experienced: Working with partners isn’t easy. In fact, the selection process alone can be a challenge.
But if we do the selection right, friction when collaborating will be reduced or entirely eliminated. Careful selection upfront makes collaboration smoother later. And it won’t just help us work better together—it will ensure we find partners who align with our strategic objectives and can help drive them forward.
So we’ve broken down the process to make it easier for you to take a systematic approach and select the partners that will help you succeed.
Here are the steps:
📋 Step 1 – Identify the Essential and Desirable criteria
This step is all about clarity:
- What you expect partners to do
- What qualities and skills need to be in place before engaging
- What qualities and skills can be developed later in the process
If your scale model requires other factors, include those at this step.
🧑💻 Step 2 – Reflect on your partner profile
Take a step back and critically assess the reasoning behind your criteria. Are you confident it’s what is truly needed for impact, and not overly restrictive?
🔍 Step 3 – Assess prospective partners
Once you’ve locked in your criteria, it’s time to map out potential partners and figure out: what specific organisations or types of organisations fit in, and what the pros and cons of each are.
🧪 Step 4 – Test your partner profile
There’s only one way to know if the partner profile you’ve built is correct, and that’s testing it in practice.
All the steps above, along with more detailed guidance, are included in our Partner Profile tool.
If you’re in the process of selecting a partner, you can jump straight to the worksheet which includes more tips to help you map out the right collaborators.
