3. Review Your Nonprofit’s Strategic Goals and Readiness for Developing Alliances

Review Your Nonprofit’s Strategic Goals and Readiness for Developing Alliances

Alliances with businesses are part of the mix of strategies and tactics that effective nonprofit organizations employ to serve their customers, reach their goals, and achieve desired results.Taken together, a nonprofit’s strategic goals are the board-approved vision of the desired future of the organization.Within that framework, board members, volunteers, and staff can examine how alliances fit and can set objectives for alliance projects.

Successful alliances between nonprofits and businesses require that nonprofits have effective leadership and management, high-quality programs, sound finances, and organizational practices open to entrepreneurial activities.Although effective alliances can help strengthen these fundamental organizational capacities, nonprofits need to have a solid foundation on which to build.

In light of opportunities to develop strategic alliances with businesses, your nonprofit should revisit its mission and strategic goals, consider objectives that might involve alliances, and assess its readiness to pursue them.Your nonprofit can then decide how to increase its capability in any areas and whether to proceed to develop alliances or to wait until improvements are made. Write your nonprofit’s mission, and then address the following questions about your nonprofit’s strategic goals and organizational readiness,providing examples wherever possible.

	Our Nonprofit’s Examples	Comments and Concerns
Strategic goals: What aspects of our vision for the organization’s future can alliances help us realize?
Effective governance: In what ways does our board demonstrate its capacity to establish sound policy, set clear direction, make timely decisions, delegate appropriately, and appraise performance?
Effective management: In what ways do we demonstrate our ability to systematically plan, implement, and evaluate major initiatives?
Quality programs:What are the programs and services that demonstrate our organization’s ability to achieve results?
Sound finances: In what ways is alliance development integrated with our overall resource development activities? Do we have sound financial systems so that alliances with businesses can be managed effectively?
Positive organizational culture: How have we demonstrated an openness to entrepreneurial activities, including seeking new opportunities, welcoming challenges, investing in new initiatives, undertaking reasonable risks, and learning from our experiences, whether or not they are successful?

Given our answers to these questions, how ready is our nonprofit to develop strategic alliances with businesses?

What, if anything, should our nonprofit undertake to strengthen its capability to develop and manage alliances (such as board, volunteer, and staff training or a resource development or strategic planning process)?

Should we begin developing strategic alliances while we strengthen our capabilities, or should we wait for specific improvements?

If we begin developing strategic alliances, how should we limit, if at all, the number or scope of alliance projects given our current organizational capacity?

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