Tools for Achieving Effective Partnership Management

 Mark Sollis, Strategist & Creative, D3 Advancement Studio

 Mark is a recognised leader in alumni and stakeholder engagement, with global experience across   higher education systems in Australia, Asia, North America, and the UK.

Teams have often been challenged to remain highly focused on investment in a strategic partnerships, regions, and activities to increase meaningful and sustainable engagement. A Partner Service Matrix [PSM] can be an important resource in this regard.

Alumni, or advancement, programmes have often been challenged by the need demonstrate immediate real, tangible ROI; to avoid episodic engagement or activities; and/or to collaborate effectively, leveraging resources and focus from across the university to enhance success. All the while, remaining highly focused on the investment in a strategic partnerships, regions, and activities over a sustained period time is necessary to increase meaningful and sustainable engagement.

A Partner Service Matrix [PSM] can be an important resource, defining the scope of engagement, for advancement team members and the respective partners from across an institution or organisation [e.g faculties, departments, and administrative departments], and from within the membership or constituent community [e.g. alumni chapters, global advancement markets]. It identifies partnership actions and expectations within the principles of a service promise. Coupled with its companion piece, a Strategic Relationship Map (SRM), which identifies partnership levels and leads for the relationship within a team or organisation, and further outlines the range of connections, including relationships of an engagement nature between partners, these tools can guide the planning, development, and management of organisational-wide strategic partner relationships, such as community engagement or integrated alumni relations plans.

It should mitigate the damaging effects of ad hoc activities and rapidly shifting focus from significant, strategic gains and effectiveness over the longer-term. It also enables the use of a “positive no” methodology to redirecting partnership work, as needed, into a deliberate, overall, managed approach. It supports focus on the execution of an institution or organisation-wide programme (e.g. alumni engagement or advancement operation) and meeting institutional strategic objectives, while leveraging and complementing other portfolio-based activities (e.g. efforts led by Student Recruitment, Business Development, etc.). Ultimately, it’s about enabling the most significant possible impact, with limited resources, across a vast array of healthy partnerships and activities to grow impact and constituent engagement.

The PSM can set partnerships within any number of tiers, ranging from those relationships with the greatest strategic priority, and an expected reasonable volume of focus and activity, to those in which partnerships can still have positive returns, but acknowledge a different level of investment is needed at this time. In the sample below, there are four categories of partners. Partners at the highest level of partnership generally have the largest groups with members engaged with each other and the organisation, and/or they are well-resourced and strategically aligned with organisation-wide priorities. Lower-level partners, on the other hand, may represent smaller market populations, be less strategically aligned with institutionally-wide priorities, and/or generally do not have a direct connection to programming and service.