Social Impact at Scale

Model

Partner Profile

Build strategic alliances by defining partner criteria, instilling confidence in collaborations and mapping potential partners

How will this tool help?

Whatever your pathway to scale, collaboration with new stakeholders is crucial. This may include implementing, referral, or technical partners. Establishing criteria for prospective partners is crucial, guiding recruitment efforts toward those who align with strategic objectives. This tool will help define partner criteria, instil confidence in collaborations, and start to map out potential partners, offering a systematic approach to building strategic alliances.

Doing this has a number of benefits:

It can help you to ‘recruit hard and manage easy’ – it is easier to promote quality in your scaling model by ensuring that partners have appropriate skills, qualities, and knowledge at the outset rather than trying to correct mistakes after they arise;
It can promote reasonable expectations and accountability, as well as allow partners to ‘self-select’ (saving you time and effort in the recruitment process).

STEP-BY-STEP

To use the tool worksheet, please follow these steps:

Make a copy to your own Google Drive folder: Click file -> Make a copy > Entire presentation > Select your personal Google Drive folder, OR
Download a copy to your desktop: Click file > Download > Microsoft Word (or other file type)

Open worksheet

Step 1

Identify the essential and desirable criteria

In the worksheet, use the following table to map out the essential and desirable criteria that any prospective partner would have to evidence for you to be confident working with them to deliver your solution at scale.

Consider what you expect partners to do* and the qualities needed to meet those expectations. You will also want to consider what a prospective partner needs to have in place before engaging with you and what skills or qualities can be developed later.

* Please refer to the roles and responsibilities tool if necessary.

The categories help structure your brainstorming, but please consider any other factors you believe would be necessary for your scale model.

Bear in mind that different partners may have different criteria – you may need to complete this exercise multiple times depending on your proposed scaling model.

Step 2

Reflect on your partner profile

Take a step back and reflect on your partner’s profile. For each criteria that you have set, answer the following questions:

What was your reason for setting this criteria?
Are you confident this criteria is required to allow a partner to deliver impact? Have you properly categorised that criteria as either essential or desirable?
Must this criteria be satisfied before working with this partner? Is it not something that a partner can develop in their role?
Are the criteria, assessed as a whole, overly restrictive?

Step 3

Assess prospective partners

In the worksheet, use the table below to map out potential partners that you believe could fit your partner profile. This map could include specific organisations or a general class of partners (such as CCGs, Academy Trusts, etc). You should assess the pros and cons of each group concerning your partner profile and any other factors you consider relevant.

Reflect on the following questions:

How easy was it to map out your potential partners?
What might this tell you about your implementer profile? Is it too restrictive or permissive?
Do you have any other reflections?

Step 4

Test your partner profile in practice to assess

Are your chosen criteria appropriate for identifying partners who can deliver your solution’s impact at scale?
Are the partners who meet your partner profile interested in and capable of working with you?

SHARE YOUR FEEDBACK

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Next steps

You are now ready to move onto the 'Roles and Responsibilities' tool define what you need from your partners

Head to the tool

Roles and Responsibilities

Set and assess roles and responsibilities for all partners you intend to work with

Get more out of the toolkit

Related Tools

Value Proposition

Show the benefits and advantages your scale model offers the stakeholders you aim to engage at scale

Quality management

Ensure that delivery remains high quality over time

Support packages

Ensure your partners have the skills and knowledge to deliver impact as part of your scaling model

Roles and Responsibilities

Set and assess roles and responsibilities for all partners you intend to work with

Scale Model Design Requirements

Define your scaling model based on your organisation’s capabilities and your knowledge of the external environment you operate in

Social Objectives

Identify and align your social and organisational objectives

Problem Definition

Clearly define the societal problem you want to address at scale

Intended Impact

Clarify the change you want to achieve to address a societal problem at scale

Design your Core

Define the essential elements that drive your impact and sustainability

Choosing a scale pathway

From replication to building a movement - explore different pathways to scaling impact

Identify risky assumptions

Identify risky assumptions within your strategy, model or solution and prioritise which you should test first.

Test risky assumptions

Reduce risk and accelerate learning as quickly as possible by testing your riskiest assumptions.

Case Studies

Case studies

Model

Partner Profile

How will this tool help?

STEP-BY-STEP

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

SHARE YOUR FEEDBACK

Want to take the next step on your scaling journey?

Sign up for 'Getting Scale Ready'

You are now ready to move onto the 'Roles and Responsibilities' tool define what you need from your partners

Roles and Responsibilities

Get more out of the toolkit

Related Tools

Value Proposition

Quality management

Support packages

Roles and Responsibilities

Scale Model Design Requirements

Social Objectives

Problem Definition

Intended Impact

Design your Core

Choosing a scale pathway

Identify risky assumptions

Test risky assumptions

Case Studies

Bringing entrepreneurial training to the masses with Street Business School

Bringing cutting-edge green tech to farmers across the globe with Sistema.bio

Improving children’s quality of care in South Africa’s public hospitals

Centrs Dardedze: Achieving a deeper impact in a financially sustainable way

CHDC: Preventing violence against children and gender-based violence across Uganda at scale

Treating depression at scale

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