 with TechSoup. We call it ED Chat. Love seeing your faces, so come on on the camera, let us see your faces. I hope you're ready to take notes either with your pen and paper or on your notebook, tablet, something today because this is a hot topic that I hear a lot and it's about strategic partnership like what is strategic partnership and how do you cultivate a partnership and keep that long-term relationship. So we're gonna be talking about that in just a moment with our featured speaker. I'm Aretha Simons, the webinar producer here at TechSoup and just so you know this is being recorded so it'll be emailed to everyone who's registered within about 48 hours. Also a survey link, please fill a survey, fill in three questions and it's very important that we get this survey filled out because we want to know your topics that you would like for our summit that's coming up. Otherwise you know guys you know engage in the chat room like you always do. So our goal here is ED Chat. If this is your first time here again welcome. We are here to discuss how nonprofits and NGOs use technology, their knowledge and connections to advance your mission. So I love when you put in the chat room a connection that you have or a website that you have or a free resource that you have. So definitely engage with each other in the chat room. I need some water because my tongue is getting out already. On behalf of TechSoup and our over 100 partners that provide us hardware and software for a discount to nonprofits. For those of you who are new here today, welcome. And if you are new this is your first time here at TechSoup. Maybe someone advised you here to ED Chat. Type of one in the chat room. I would love to know. I mean all of our webinars are free and so I know a lot of people get invited from other friends. I would love to know. Oh great, Steve. Great, Pat. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, let me know. Oh, a lot of people are typing a one in chat room. I love it. This is great. This is great. Let me know. You thought on social media. How'd you find out? Somebody advised you? I would love to know. So just so you know, for those of you who are new, please, this is how you can participate. They please stay on mute. We use the raise the hand button right there at the side of your screen to unmute yourself when you're called upon. We'll ask you to say your name, your name, your organization and try to keep your comments or questions or suggestions to a minute or two so that everyone can have a chance to speak. Otherwise, feel free to engage with each other in the chat room. So again, today is a hot topic and I know you're going to hear something from either our speaker or someone else and you might have a moment where you say, wow, I need to tweet that. I need to share that. So share on social media and then follow us on all of our social media platforms, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, follow us on all of them. Try to name all of them, but follow us. Just look for us at TechSoup. Again, just like I've been seeing new people here today, invite other people to come to ED Chat to join the conversation. I've been here from you. This is the place where you could come and let your hair down. A lot of EDs don't talk to other EDs. You're busy doing your work. So this is a place where everybody here is doing what you do. They're having some of the same struggles, some of the same challenges and successes that you do. So make sure you invite everybody to come, become a feature speaker. I love when people say, hey, you know, because I know you wear more than one hat. So you might be an expert in board of directors development. You might be an expert in so many other areas that nonprofits exist. Please let me know. Send me an email at asymons at TechSoup.org and become a feature feature speaker. Also, I want to hear some of your topics. What are the topics that you want to hear? People always ask about grant writing and fundraising, but type in the chat room some of the topics that you would like us to discuss. Again, please fill out the survey so that we'll know what topics you want to hear. At the conference, because this conference is about EDs and a lot of times you get invited to a conference and they have their own agenda. But we want to know your agenda because it's all about helping you. So let us know. OK, today, strategic partnership. Look, this is one of those requested topics. So I'm going to get right into it. I'm going to focus on the speaker today instead of giving you any more details. I'm going to introduce her to you. Chidi Colesweth, she is the founder of Donors for Africa. Look, I'm going to get it right. Donors for Africa. She's the founder and executive director. So look, she's wearing multiple hats, just like many of you. And at this global consulting firm, which is Donors for Africa Foundation, she works actively with governments, funding institution, the private sector, the philanthropic organization, NGOs and social impact leaders to break the cycle of poverty in Africa. In addition to that, I do want you to know that she was a finalist for Africa's most influential woman government in business and public service for the NGO category. Now, I know a lot of you are saying, well, she's in Africa. How is this going to help us? Well, just so you know, she has trained over 1,000 people with social impact or who have social impact organizations. She's raised over 30 million dollars in direct and indirect funding. And she's reached over 41,000 unique accounts, providing weekly knowledge on development or community development. Excuse me. So she's somebody that might know a little something, something. So, Chidi, thank you so much for being here all the way from Africa. I don't even know what time it is. It might be your bedtime, but you chose to be able to stay. So thank you. I'm going to turn it over to you and allow you to share your screen. Great. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation as well. You've been super, super helpful. My name is Chidi. Like she said, I'd like to meet every single person on the call. I'm going to be sharing my screen in like another one minute or so. And basically to this conversation is just going to center around partnerships. Like she said, partnerships have one of the things we've been able to succeed at. And I think it's a common principle that cuts across our board. So whether you are in any part of the world, right? Everybody looks to secure new partnerships for the work that we do. My hope tonight is that we can take something away from today's session. Ask questions. I'll get to make a bit more about the work you all do as well as some of the work that some of the conversations that could come out of the conversation meeting we're having today. So thank you once more. Great. Now, introduction to building strategic partnerships. We all may or may not know what strategic partnerships is or are, but a strategic partner is pretty much another entity which we choose to form an agreement or a relationship with. And the essence of doing this is because we are hoping it's going to be a mutually beneficial relationship. So to this session, you know, strategic partnership is extremely broad, like in all things, I'm going to try and focus on one or two specific parts of partnership building. And we could allow the questions and answers take us further or deeper into the session. And the second part of the conversation is just going to focus on the how to. I find that a lot of times there's so much conversations about, oh, this is what I did or this is how I did it. But nobody's telling me the step by step process to take in securing that partnership. And I'm hoping we would have a good time to have that conversation tonight. Oh, it's nice, by the way. So great to simplify our conversation, right? I'm going to make it look like a relationship, you know, I want us to like in partnerships to a relationship, someone you fancy, right? So first of all, there is always an attraction. Hopefully there is always an attraction. And when it comes to finding attraction or when I mean attraction, it simply means first off, you need to find businesses, government entities or organizations that your vision aligns. One of the key things I have seen in the course of my work is that sometimes nonprofits design one proposal and they are sending it to pretty much everyone who they think can give them money. And I understand I leave one myself. The process of trying to sit down to the strategy, to the thinking. Not a lot of people have time for that. Like we just want to get into the field, get the work done, bring the money who will make the impact and continue to scale up our work. But this is also a very important part of what you're finding, who you're going to get attracted to. A lot of times it's important that your vision aligns, your missions align. You want to ensure that this is someone or an organization who is funding the sort of work that you do. Now, the more times you find this organization, it could be a government agency, it could be a funding institution or a private sector company or even similar nonprofits that you're looking to scale up your work based off on their strengths. Now, the very next step to take would be to court the person or the relationship for a while. So based off of my experience, I know that people do business with people they know, like and trust. When I know you, when I like you, when I trust you, it's a step for me to put money in your pocket. But the process of knowing and liking and trust usually takes a lot of time. Sometimes what that timing is extremely important. So one of the things that I love to do is to follow or let me let me backtrack and be one of the things that I like to do is to find out who are the organizations I'm interested in. So the moment I know the organizations I'm interested in, I find out who are the key people within the organizations who have the power to take a decision on my financing. If it's in the private sector, it could be the people in communication, sponsorships, marketing, of course, those people are looking for a different sort of thing. For example, they are looking for visibility and not necessarily interested in the impact they are about to make sometimes or most of the time. What they're interested in is a return on investment, on visibility, on brand positioning, helping them look good and making them look like they are active contributors to society. So you're selling them a different story. You're trying to tell them about the reach of your project, the scale of your project, why they should come on board your project, why you have the right demographic that can target the product of services that they are putting out there. So you have to find a different story to tell an organization who is driven by sponsorship, brand positioning and visibility. At the cutting stage, something else that I really enjoy doing is getting to know the person behind the brand or getting to know the person behind the organization. So I get to know, for example, who is Aretha? What does she like? What does she enjoy doing? Has she received an award recently? Did she just publish a book? Like, I try to find out who the person behind the position is. And why is this extremely important? Sometimes I've gone as far as signing up into clubs and membership that I believe that Aretha is very interested or very passionate about, like, this is an example, by the way. You know, who I think she's very, you know, things that I think she's very interested in or passionate about. I get into the same room with her. I get to know her better. I'm not making an ask. I'm not asking for anything. I'm just getting to know the individual behind the brand. Now, the moment you're done with the cutting and it seems like you have been in this relationship for a while. So sometimes it was something as basic as commenting on their posts, inviting them to your programs and activities, aligning yourself, some of the work that they do. Just getting what aligning and making sure that you are recognizable. And then I move into the big ask. Like everything else, especially in this sort of relationships, it's very easy to go two ways. It could be a yes or a no. Oh, yes, I want to spend the rest of my life with you or no. I'm sorry. I'm not the person I'm looking to be with right now. Right. That's exactly how it works in a in a in a partnership or strategic partnership. It's important we don't assign the results of an ask to the work that we do personally. Because sometimes I have found that sometimes someone tells you, and the next day they're saying yes, because at the time they said no to you, it's probably because the organization or the funding agency isn't looking to fund work around that particular time that you are making your ask. But in a yes time, something may have happened internally. Maybe there's a change of vision. There's a change in the interest of the organization. But because I have kept up on them, I have retained a relationship. They're in my mailing list and I'm consistently in their face. It's easier for me to go back to them next year and say, hey, look, this project we had pitched last year, is this something you think you're considering on coming on board for coming on board with right? And then many at times I have gotten a yes just because I've been very persistent. And also I have also I've also explored a lot of low hanging foot when it comes to relationship building. So sometimes they don't have money to give me right. They don't have the five thousand, the ten thousand, one hundred thousand dollars to give to me. So many times I explore in kind partnerships and this is also something I would like to touch on at the end of at the start of every year as a nonprofit when you design your project or organizational project for the year. I also like to design a resource mobilization project or what I call an in kind budget. So what I mean by that is I ask for everything else that I would need to make my organization thrive. So for example, if TechStube is offering maybe some software or something that little or no cost, right, I can choose to if TechStube is not ready to give me money at this particular time. What else can they give me that they are not ready to give me money? So a lot of times what that has done for us is we established relationships and receive in kind support that is equivalent to financial support. So while the money is great, I also love when we provide nonprofits to try, try to also have in kind pitches. So at the time they're saying no to you, is there something else that I can offer them that they will say yes to? It could be employee retention time and opportunity to volunteer with the organization and opportunity to come and train, speak for partner with the program I do at no cost. And I allow you into my space and allow you to become aware of some of the programs that I do and how it can benefit the organization. Something else I did not touch on when it comes to identifying the right partner. Something I also do a lot of times that I go and research the organizations that they have funded in the past. So who have they given money to in the past? Why did they give them money? Why have they funded them three times in a row or six times in a row? I'll tell you guys they need to take it. So recent there was a conversation with a potential donor and. I heard them complaining about a particular partner they had been doing. Well, quite a lot of money they have been putting into that partnership. And they were complaining. My advantage, right, for being in that conversation at that point in time is to leverage whatever it is that they would love to see an improvement in. So, for example, one of the core things they have touched on, right? Was certain areas this other donor or previous donor or sorry, recipient or receiving donor agency wasn't willing to go into. So, for example, in my country, we have about 36 different states and they are all divided into geopolitical zones. So now in the Western states where this potential, this partner was resident. They had a lot of projects that they were implementing and they were not looking to strike into other states. But it didn't matter in person is interested in expanding the quality of work that they do into other states and into other regions. So because I was able to get into a conversation with them, no, we are not taking money away from them, but we are also helping our potential donor skin up their projects into new states. So sometimes you also want to explore conversations along those lines if they've been funding a particular organization for an extended period of time. I always love to know what the organization is doing right. And as well, sometimes you hear what they're not doing so well and I make that weakness and offer. So in this particular case, it's OK, they are resident in the West and they are not looking to expand to other states simply because they don't have the capacity to, but we are looking to expand. And I also want to touch on something else. Them funding a organization A doesn't mean that they are taking money away from organization A to one organization B. They just have more money to put into projects. So they are all they are doing a question in our life. It is that aspect of your phone to go into regions or areas that this other partner doesn't have the capacity to go into. So when you explore partnership, that's really important. You look at, like I said, who have defunded in the past? Why did they fund them? What sort of projects were involved? What do I bring to the table to help them deliver their projects better? I like to see partnerships as my funder has a problem and I have the solution that they need. So I always think about partnerships from the perspective of my fund that it's really never about me. What I think about is there is a problem and I have the solution. And when I go to them, I said to them, look, I have this problem you have and this is the solution we can so far. And this is why you should be working with us. Then I bring in all the expertise and the years and the numbers and everything else that would help you say yes to my project. And it has worked every time. You know, it has worked every time. So I put yes or no simply because sometimes they would say yes. Sometimes they would say no, even when you get a no. Let that not stop you from keeping them in your pool of potential partners and consistently following through with them until you get a yes, hopefully a year, three years, three years time. Now to wrap up the conversation slowly, right? One of the things I have observed when it comes to successful partnership is that two things must exist in your nonprofit. Number one, there must be a solid work strategy for your organization. And number two, there must also be a solid perspective strategy. These are the two areas that I have found non-profits to sort of struggle in. The solid growth strategy has a lot to do with your non-profit strategy. Where are you headed? Some nonprofits have achieved their vision and you have honestly evolved into a new vision. But because many of us are not conscious of the fact that we have grown an old vision and we have come to a new vision. We end up spending so much time in this old vision, not realizing that you have actually evolved in five years, in 10 years. It just may be time to spice up the sort of programs you offer and begin to look at what people are now funding in your sector. So a solid growth strategy is important because if you don't know what they need, or rather, if you don't know where you are in your organization, then most likely you don't know what you need. I remember when I had conversations with one of our founding board members and she had said, oh, yes, we love the idea. We'd love to get a board. How much do you need? I was very quick not to say anything when it comes to money. I was like, look, you know what? We don't need your money. We just need you on board because this woman is extremely intelligent, right? And she has all this access. And I don't want you to give me money. And then you head off one year later and we have no consistent relationship. So I kept it focused on the access, on the insight and on the depth of information that she had in the sector. And that has now gone on to translate into a lot of money two, three years down the line. So a solid growth strategy is very important. And number two, a prospective strategy. And this is pretty much the law of attraction or the first part of our conversation around attraction. You must know who you're looking for. You must know who you're looking for. And it has to be deliberate. It has to be intentional. It has to be a conscious effort, because if not, what happens is you're hoping the right person will find you. You're hoping you will find the right person. So I am always, even if it's just five partners, I'm looking to achieve or looking to access every year. I keep it focused on that five. And many a times I'm usually very successful. Many a times I'm usually really successful in closing relationship with that five just because I got my perspective right. And I want to quickly move on to OK, this is just the first point of everything we discussed. Understand the organization, find the right connection, create a clear mutual goal for both organizations, address weaknesses and highlight your strengths. And of course, most importantly, define each other's goals and responsibilities. Now I want to delve into how you structure your pitch because a lot of times I get questions around. OK, so we've heard all this. How do we move from point A to point B? And these are like some practical steps will be great to take notes. First off, I make sure my subject line either on LinkedIn or via email. I make sure it is so it's something that you can't resist or something you can't help but click on and open up, right? So for example, I made some examples here. So let's say an SME expo speaking request and this is deliberate. I deliberately did not touch on money because partnership is not always is not always when it comes to money. Partnerships can be very diverse. So this is someone who is requesting to speak at a potential sponsor. And I titled it SME Expo Speaking Request in Kechi Oji. So from the moment you receive the email, you know exactly what I'm asking you for. You don't have to read four pages down to finally try and figure out what's the point she's trying to make from the title of my email. You know exactly what it is that you're looking at for. Another example I cited here is that, for example, a partnership opportunity to save your 100,000 era or $100,000 every month in your operations. If you get an email like this, you will be interested in learning how to save money in your company, in your foundation, in anything it is that you'll do it. So I always go for punchy titles so that I keep you interested and I get to open my email. Now there is a there is a statistics that say that the first two to three minutes of anyone opening your email pretty determined to go and continue to read your email. So I put my ask up front. I don't leave it to the very end of the project or the conversation or the email to tell you what I want. I come up straight. Hello, my name is Chidi Coltred. I'm reaching out to you to find out if you're looking to explore partnerships in the tech sector, in XYZ, XYZ, XYZ products. So the moment I do that, I've made my ask, I've told you exactly what I'm looking for. And then your next paragraph should be why should they care? Why should they care? So this remains a substance of your of your email. And what I like to add in this portion of my email is my track record, right? So, for example, DFA has reached well over XYZ number of people over three different communities or seven different states. We've worked with high level funding agencies or we've received funding from XYZ organization, XYZ organization, XYZ organization. This is not a time to be humble and nice and sweet. And this is why you really want to tell them why you are the preferred partner. And like I say, if you if you if you. If you've investigated the organization, if you've read your press releases, their annual reports, you would know where they are headed. And then you should be preparing a solution in this particular paragraph that it helps you get to the face. Something else I like to do sometimes is I try to be very sweet. I mean, it doesn't really have to be sweet. So, for example, congratulations. I write down the launch of your new book. You know, I have bought a copy of a book and I'm very intrigued with what you wrote about in page 17. This is something that truly interests me. Are you open to having a conversation in our maybe exclusive meeting, right? And because I have celebrated the work she has done, I have told her I have connected with the most recent achieve that she has made. The chances of getting a response is extremely high. One thing I want to encourage you to do is to do a thorough research before reaching out when we get a lot of partnership requests. People call me just so in my country, my name sounds like a guy's name, right? So you end up calling me just and I'm a sheet and I'm reading an email from someone who says yes, sir. Naturally, I'm turned off, right? So it's always great to have the name of the person who you are reaching out. There is an email platform. It's called, I think, hauntas.org or hauntas.com. I'm going to share the link. It's a platform that allows you set for pretty much anybody's email in any organization in any part of the world. As long as anyone has used that email address to log on to that platform in the past, you will be able to generate at least a format with which they write their emails within that specific organization. And then finally, when you're wrapping up your emails, I always love to leave a call to action. You read emails sometimes from potential partners and they're not telling me what next to do. So I've read about your beautiful projects. I've read about how fantastic you are in the work that you do. What next? There should always be a call to action. Do you want to meet for a meeting? Would you love to have a call? Would you like us to have an in-person meeting? Be very clear and very specific on the outcome you're looking to get from every email you sent to a potential partner or client. I must also warn you that strategic partnership is not a work in the park. Anyone who has been doing this for a while, you and I know that it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of roles. But the most important thing is to be persistent and to keep pushing because eventually you will get the result that you're looking to get. And I always cite this example from Fortune 500 companies, right? There was a time I went with a website. One of these Fortune 500 companies in the UK. I went to their website. I wanted to subscribe to one of the packages they had at 10 pounds, right? It's just 10 pounds. They're making all those copies and they kept calling me and writing me emails and following up with my 10 pounds. And they were like, oh, we noticed you were about to make this transaction. Are you having any difficulty? Would you like to have a meeting? I consistently received emails from a profit-making company who I just wanted to spend 10 pounds on. But for a lot of us non-profits who are changing lives and transforming communities, when we get that... that we'll always call it that wall, you're quick to run off and say, okay, okay, okay, off to the next and then you're running off. I just want to encourage us to keep pushing because if they're looking for my 10 pounds and I'm not a Fortune 500 company, it means we also must press and press until we get an actual response. So just to wrap up the session or to wrap up the class, number one, research the people you want to partner with. Who are they funding? Where do you find them? And how can you communicate with them? Number two, there is a distance between what we learned and what we send out. Ensure that you capture your social impact stories. Networking is a very strong strategy. Explore networks, explore groups. I've done the craziest things. I've done gym memberships. I've done... I've enrolled in women's groups just because I was looking to get in the face of a potential partner. And like I said, 80% of the time it has worked out because I just wouldn't back now, right? Then you also want to do a lot of research on your documents, communicate your impact, publish a report, publish an impact story. We do phenomenal work, but we don't spend time telling our stories as non-profits because again, we are consistently looking to create change. And then review your documents and reward your proposal. I never send the same proposal to companies. I always, always tweak my proposals to meet the needs of every single company I am approaching. So that's really, it's a lot of work. And then most importantly, speak the language of a potential sponsor. Foundations are interested in impacts. Private sector companies are looking for brand positioning. They are looking for return on investment. They're looking for social capital. They want to look good, help them look good, right? So I think I'm pretty much done, right? But I think from this point, I will just take questions if anyone has and I'm looking to hear what anyone else has to say. Thank you guys so much. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you so much. I know that she is very passionate. Can you feel her passion? You can tell she was getting excited. But you got, you guys, that's worth it. That's why I was taking notes. But I love your passion. Thank you for sharing your knowledge today. And I know there's gotta be some questions because this is something that if you haven't done, you will have to do. You will have to woo somebody, court somebody, propose to somebody to have that strategic partnership. Look, everybody's saying amazing conversation. Lots of thank yous in the chat room. Yes, give her her props. I'm telling you, she's from another country and raising money all over the world. And this is what I love too about tech to being a worldwide organization. We have partners or members in all different countries. So, Chidi, that was really, really super, super amazing. So I want to open it up. Please use your, raise your hand button to ask any questions. And Chidi, if you can take your screen down, that would be great. I got lots of notes. I do want to recognize somebody. How about somebody send me a note one second? I'm gonna go back to her. Oh, before I do that, the seeds of life, Rishwana, Rishwana, I love you. You are a TechSoup fan. I love you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Oh, so you're here. You're here with us. Great. You have the seed of life foundation. So you definitely need to connect with Chidi. Tell us about your organization in like one minute, please. Okay. This is Rishwana. I represent the seed of life foundation. We provide education and major based education to underprivileged communities in orphanages in Africa. And then we plant our school gardens, which aids job security, hunger, and slight climate change all at the same time. And unfortunately after COVID-19, we are one of the few organizations that provide them this kind of opportunity. Please do visit our social medias. If you have any questions, feel free to give me a call. And yes, I would like to connect with donors for Africa because that's where we are. And we wanna be there when we can do something. It's a global phenomenon we're facing right now. That is great. Type your information in the chat room. And Rishwana, email me, asymonsatetsu.org and I'll connect you and Chidi because I follow her on social media. You don't follow people on social media unless you really wanna follow them. So I follow them and I'm amazed at what they do. You see videos of them, they're playing there and they really are into saving the environment and just a whole bunch of things. I've been learning a lot. Anyone have any questions for Chidi or comments that you would like to come live to make? Someone wants to know, share your website. Can you share your website and what city she's located in? Is this with Rishwana or Chidi? Both of you share your websites, please. So any questions? Who has had a successful strategic partnership and let us know what you accomplished besides Chidi? Because we know Chidi has done it. Good, Ginger, I cannot hear you though. You can't see me? I think I got you now, great, perfect. Okay, hi. Hello everyone. I'm Hi, Chidi, great presentation, thank you. Well, our organization does have a couple of great partnerships. The organization is the Sickle Cell Thalassemia Patients Network, 32 years old, actually older than that. It started as an adult support group about 35 years ago and serves individuals and families living with sickle cell disease and other inherited blood disorders. And the first partnerships were with the doctors who cared for the population in the hospitals. We've worked in about 18 hospitals throughout New York City on grant-funded programs to provide coordination of care. Now we're doing two care coordination for adults and transitioned for young adults moving out of pediatrics into adult care and we're expanding in hospitals starting this year. And now we've been trying to when I getting successful now and bringing together the other sickle cell organizations in the state to work collaboratively and we've been doing that through political advocacy. So we've gotten the other organization in about 32 people throughout the state to work with us to advocate for a Sickle Cell Treatment and Surveillance Act in New York. And, you know, I'm very interested in putting the chat I really want to learn more about private public partnerships because I was at the World Orphan Drug Conference two weeks ago and they were talking about that. But, you know, as she did the how to, you know the how to do that, we do have sponsorships from pharmaceuticals but it's not the same as having a partnership. You know, we're getting money but we would like to have more interactions, you know, employee volunteers, membership on our advisory board, things like that because we want to build, especially in the way of technology to do, you know, new things in the organization and expand the work that we're doing. Wow, Cheney, you wanna have any comments for her? Because I have some comments for you, Jinder. Do you have any comments for Jinder? Go ahead, go ahead. I heard a lot of things. First of all, I do wanna say I see your background on Sickle Cell and I know people, the small nonprofits are, you look at larger nonprofits like, well, they're a big nonprofit, you know so they're gonna get to the department but they've been doing the work for 30 years. So sometimes I'm not saying it's gonna take 30 years but sometimes it take consistency and you hanging in there. And then she mentioned her struggles. So even large organizations have trouble. She mentioned boards, she mentioned, you know, getting help. So even large organizations have struggles. I just wanna say that. So we can always look at, you know a large organization think, oh, they got it going on. They getting all the money they're getting all the help. But all of us are in the same boat and that is why we're here. So Chidi, did you wanna add anything to that? No, you pretty much said it's all right. It takes time. Like I would always like to say it takes time. It's not something that can get done in a split second except you're really lucky because sometimes those things happen. You're just at the right place at the right time and you're the right person. And you're like, oh, where have you been? You're searching for someone like you and it just clicks, right? But many a times when such things don't happen you just need to go through the process and trust the process, you know and just hang in there to finally something clicks. And interestingly, the moment you're able to close one partner. It's almost like everyone else is waiting for one person to take a risk on you and then other people are now much more, oh, okay, okay, okay, they didn't crumble. Let's get into the boat. And then it becomes a lot easier. That was powerful. That was powerful. Somebody else maybe watching, everybody's watching you but somebody may be waiting for someone else to take a risk on you and then they may, you know just come aboard. I'm gonna go to the chat room and there's a couple of questions here from Marian. How do you keep in touch with partners and potential future partners that said no? Okay, so I love emails a lot. So I do have a newsletter and email newsletter. This is someone that I talked to that. So I use a lot of newsletters and in your newsletters as a way I segment my newsletter signups, right? And I have them listed as potentials in my newsletter signup in my whatever that's called, right? And what I do is that I send once in a month just updates on the work that we're doing. And the specific update I sent to that group are partner related updates. So for example, oh, DFA recently launched a partnership with TechSoup and I will tell you how we are helping TechSoup achieve their goal, right? And those are the sort of information that I share with those potential partners. Now why I do that is because people leave organizations. So maybe while you get a text you couldn't come on board my project but then you go into development then or some other organization and then you begin to see some synergies and it's easier for you to remember there's this person you always get an email from once a month. So I would just say have a filing system where you have everyone's email and then once a month communicate specific partnership related news and stories with that particular sector. So that it can see how you're doing fantastic work with other people and would love to do some work with you as well. Wow, that was priceless and you got it for free today. Woo, that was priceless. Separate emails, because I never thought of that. That's priceless. And I mean, how many of you are you doing that? Put a one in the chat room if you have separate email. Yeah, Mrs. Spetsch was like, nope, not doing that. Yeah, I mean, that's priceless. That's, we need to adopt that too. Okay, Stephanie. No, I'm sorry, Lauren, I skip your question. How can social impact structures, excuse me, startups work towards strategic partnership in the early stages of the organizational development? Very good question. You have to start from what you need. I always recommend for startups always start from what you need. So what do you need right now? And it has to be an honest evaluation, right? And don't think about money because everybody say, oh, funding, no. Look at it objectively, right, from the outside. What do you need right now as a growing startup? I've traded visibility with brand organizers. For example, there was an organization who was really great at branding and brand positioning and all those brand detailing, right? And at that time, we couldn't afford to pay all this huge amount of money for all the branding that comes with it. It's a small nonprofit then, but it was a small nonprofit. So what we did was to have conversations with the founders and then we realized that a lot of, they've been looking to launch some airline related foundation that had to do with getting more women into the airline industry and things like that. So we offered them at no cost the strategy, the setup, everything that what we got in return was branding and brand positioning and all those things that we could not afford to pay for. So you always need to look at what do I need? When you look at what you need, then it's easier for you to not begin to approach and it's called resource mobilization. You begin to approach your partners from the perspective of resource mobilization. What can I get for work like a break by butter? Wow, another priceless gem. Thank you so much. Stephanie said, Chidi, how may I, excuse me, I missed at the beginning, but is your outline approach for contact of strategic partners mainly cold outreach or also from warm leads? It's actually a combination of two. And I will say because when we first started, we relied a lot on referrals because we're doing so much work, like so much good work with one partner. They refer you to another partner. So we relied a lot on referrals, but you know, my brain would, I would always say, what happens if they all decide to stop partnering with us on projects? So then we began to take the cold calling. So that's where you do the prospecting, do the short listing, you find potential partners. And if you wanna ask me, where can I find my potential partner? Find who is funding organization like yours. They are your potential partner. So all we now do is find those people and then begin to cold call. This is where we are now preparing proposals, reaching out, asking for meetings, sometimes getting a response, sometimes not getting a response, asking for people who know people within the organizations, right? So if you have a friend who works here, can I have a conversation with her? And then Sheena tells you who is the right person to send an email to. Sometimes it's the front desk officer and not the CEO. It's really just very tricky. You begin to hear all these interesting stories and uniqueness. If you can get it in front of his office, of his or her secretary, then you to definitely get in front of the CEO. If you do a cold, if you send it in the post mail, nobody will respond to it. So having those conversations, like getting to know through cold calling, it also makes you very proactive and you're not waiting for something to happen before you close your contractions. So it's a combination of both. That's good, that's good. Phoebe said, my email list is cold and warm. What should I do to make the cold list warm and the warm list hot? That's a good one. That's a really good question. What do you do to make the cold list warm? What's had them up, right? See if you can have a potential partner hangout. It could be over. Like I always find something of interest. See if you could invite them to maybe come for your, one of your special events, right? See if it's something they may be interested in. I don't recommend offering gifts, because then it think it will always appear as if you're trying to maybe buy favors. So I always try to invite them or bring them into my space or goes through people who know them to get into their space. Sometimes I've actually gotten on board whole projects. So what I mean by that is, if they funded another organization, I go and partner with that organization, right? And sometimes the partnership is that, I'm not expecting money in return. It could be, oh, we'll be happy to help you put up your pliers or we'll be happy to help you deliver a session or we'll be happy to help you do XYZ because my potential partner or donor is their current donor and partner. So like I said, people do business with people they know, like and trust. And the trick is to get them to at least know you. So if they funded GINGER STPN in the past, what projects can I work with GINGER on, for example, that allows me to be in the same space with my potential donor? Because then they can make the connection or see me with GINGER's event. Oh, yes, we've partnered on XYZ project together. And then that way, there's an easier entry, what I call it's entry level or entry way to make the conversation along smooth side. Awesome, thank you. Shoretta said great information. Thank you for sharing these partnerships. And I guess hi, Shoretta. Janice said, you mentioned a way to research email addresses. Can you expound on that? Yes, so if I don't find it right away, I have sometimes I just want to do things immediately. If I don't find it right away, I'm going to send it to Aretha. But it's a link, it's a link of, there's some link that you include in if you're searching for the email addresses of people. I mean, if you don't want to ask directly and you feel like you've asked back where I'm from, right here, it's not people don't just give you their email addresses, it's always very difficult to find. Except to go on LinkedIn and you make it direct ask. And that's another thing, please guys explore LinkedIn. It's a phenomenal platform for non-profits. Like a lot of the partners I have gotten in front of their case, it was via LinkedIn. Because I followed them, I knew how LinkedIn is, as you engage on their post more, your feed is popping up on their feed, their feed is popping up on yours. So aside from LinkedIn, I'm going to try and find out that particular link and I'll send it to you Aretha. So I don't keep us too long on the call, but I promise to send it to you too. Okay, great, great. This has been fantastic. That was a good nugget too. You've been noticing how social media is making, like if you like somebody else's than other, it's just amazing how it goes around. Any questions, any hands raised? I had the screen where I can only see the faces of people whose faces were on. And I don't know if I missed any hands being raised here in the other room. No other questions. Can we give some snaps for Chidi all the way from Africa? Thank you so much, girl. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. Amazing, amazing. So I'm going to put the link to the survey here once again, it's very important that you fill out the survey. It will help us to decide which topics that you want to hear. I want to know if there are any pastors or leaders in the faith-based arena, stick around with me. I'm going to stop recording for just a moment, stick around me, because I want to have a special conversation with you. Give me five minutes of your time. I always tell you, make sure that you take care of yourself because I know you've been busy taking care of other people. So please make sure you take care of yourself. Chidi, thank you, thank you so much. Have a great day, everybody. Thank you guys, bye.