FREE NONPROFIT TELESEMINAR: Designing Strategic Partnerships with Businesses

Designing Strategic Partnerships with Businesses
This is Your Personal VIP Invitation
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
3:00 – 4:00 pm Eastern

If you are like most nonprofit leaders, you probably are very concerned these days about the impact of a tough economy on your ability to get needed resources for your organization or program. You see the need mushrooming in your community every day…and you see the companies around you starting to tighten their philanthropic belt. So what to do?

No matter how good your program or organization may be, if you can’t clearly make the case for why a business should support YOUR nonprofit organization over all the others also seeking their support, you are bound to fail. You need to know the right formula for approaching businesses to create win-win partnerships to secure the resources you so desperately need.

In this call, Susan Hyatt reveals how to move past the old school “beg for donations” and checkbook philanthropy mentality to present your organization, NOT as needy, but as a valuable partner – offering to share your assets (such as networks, publications, special events, etc.) with companies that choose to partner and share their resources with you. If you want to strengthen your “ask” and improve your success rate, you definitely need to attend this FREE teleseminar to:

• Learn about 4 current trends in the business world that affect giving practices;
• Discover the 4 critical needs of businesses that you can help address through a partnership;
• Learn the 10 biggest mistakes nonprofits make when seeking business support – so you don’t make them!
• And much more!

Get ready for an hour of information and insights that will change the tone and success of your business partnerships forever.

More Information about Susan Hyatt:

Susan Hyatt is the author of The Nonprofit Toolkit: Designing Strategic Partnerships with Businesses. She is a nationally-known consultant, trainer, and speaker and the founder of Business Nonprofit CONNECTIONS, Inc., which is dedicated to helping nonprofits and businesses partner more effectively for real impact on pressing social issues. Working with nonprofit organizations domestically and internationally for more than 20 years, Susan continually pushes the envelope to find NEW ways to address issues of nonprofit sustainability through strategic business partnerships.

Susan has conducted training in 49 states for over 10,000 nonprofit leaders and their board members on such topics as strategic business partnerships, performance measurement and evaluation, and using data effectively to gain stakeholder support. Susan has conducted interviews with more than 50 business leaders as part of the research for her forthcoming book, Strategic Business Philanthropy: How Smart Companies Do Good AND Do Well.” She has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, The Akron Times Beacon, and the Denver Business Journal. Her insights and articles regularly appear in her email newsletter, CONNECTIONS, which reaches business and nonprofit leaders worldwide.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER HERE FOR THIS FREE TELESEMINAR!

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Upcoming Nonprofit Trainings — Recession Proof Resources: How SMART Nonprofits Design Strategic Partnerships with Businesses

I am excited to offer these updated trainings next month on my all time favorite topic – strategic partnerships between nonprofits and business – as it is an especially important topic for our times.

Attending the Nonprofit Summit in Denver this week, I was reminded again how only thinking “donors and fundraising” is an “old school” mindset and shuts down possibilities for win/win ventures.  This workshop provides great tips and tools for partnerships with mutual benefits and is a MUST attend for nonprofit staff and board members.

• Are you worried about having the resources to keep your organization and programs going?
• Are you seeing your cash donations shrinking?
• Do you feel your requests to businesses are being “lost in the noise” among all the other nonprofits also looking for support?
• Have you experienced difficulty receiving business support more than once or twice and wonder why they aren’t giving to you any more?

Then Recession Proof Resources: How Smart Nonprofit Design Strategic Partnerships with Businesses is DEFINITELY for you!

I will be offering it two ways so the largest number of organizations possible can take part:

1.  LIVE in Denver on April 28th, 2009 1-5 pm.

2.  Via WEBINAR April 8, 15, 22 and 28 12-1pm ET so you can join in from anywhere!.

Click the appropriate link above for more information and to sign up.  Registration is limited so do it TODAY to make sure you get a seat!

I really look forward to shating tips and tools to help you be more successful in acquiring the resources you need!

Take the Nonprofit Survey on Business Partnerships

Today I launched Business Nonprofit CONNECTIONS’ 2009 survey for nonprofits to collect information about their partnerships with businesses.  I hope to add to the vast amount of resources I already have on the subject tand use it to inspire both nonprofits and businesses to get more invovled with each other.  The survey gauges nonprofits’ sense of their own effectiveness in six areas related to business partnerships.  It is also designed to collect information about nonprofit best practices in partnering with businesses, challenges experienced, tips and strategies for successful partnering, the types of benefits/resources received, and any impact of current economic conditions.

If you are with a nonprofit, I invite you to click the link and complete this short survey.  I appreciate your time.  http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228VWVAZBC4

Denver’s O3 Nonprofit Summit

On Monday, I attended the O3 Nonprofit Summit in Denver; I was on a panel about Corporate Sector Response to our economic times.  I was struck by how many of the social sector staff attending the Summit still talk about “donors and fundraising” instead of developing integrated win/win partnerships with companies, especially smaller local ones.  For 10 years, I have trained nonprofits nationally on how to partner with businesses.  (Guess I need to do more work in my own backyard!)  I know from first hand experience that nonprofits that can expand their perspective past checkbook philanthropy to really think mutually beneficial partnerships with businesses are able to develop more substantial relationships that last over time.  I am back on my soapbox…   And I truly believe these times call for collective and creative efforts drawing on the best of all sectors.

Nonprofit Sustainability – What is it?

Nonprofit sustainability is the ability of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (or one of its programs) to continue to meet the needs of the community on an ongoing basis – beyond the life of specific grants or with diminishing support. For many nonprofits, their view is narrow and sustainability equals fundraising to them. However, fundraising is only one component of capacity building and sustainability.  There are four key strategies to consider when building organizational capacity and, ultimately, the sustainability of your organization and its programs:
 
1. Recruiting and managing community volunteers
2. Partnering with community members and organizations
3. Marketing and promotion
4. Increasing and diversifying resources

I remember clearly going to one of my first Business for Social Responsibility Conferences years ago as I was starting to get more involved with corporate social responsibility and working with businesses, as opposed to nonprofits.  I went to a session with sustainability in the title thinking I could glean some new tips or strategies to share with my clients.  I sat there feeling totally lost – people were nodding their heads in agreement with the speakers’ comments all around me but what they were saying did not match my nonprofit definition of the term.  As I talked to more business people, often they were using “sustainability” to mean environmental considerations such as how not to pollute or use up all the planet’s resources in the course of doing business to leave the planet as healthy as possible for future generations.  However, what I find is that increasingly, when business people use the term sustainability, they are referring to the “triple bottom line” of profitability, environmental and social issues in business operations.

So while both types of organizations are looking at issues related to insuring their own success over the longer term, the specifics are quite different in many respects.  So beware when you are talking with business people about your nonprofit’s “sustainability”.  Their minds may be elsewhere and it would be in your best interest to explain how you are using the term to avoid any miscommunication.

My new blog will deal primarily with issues of resource development for nonprofits including developing strategic partnerships with businesses.  I will also get into ideas in the other three areas, as well.  However, I really want to catalyze a dialogue that gets nonprofit leaders out of the traditional paradigm of writing grants and asking for donations and inspires them to tweak their resource development efforts to maximize returns.