If charity digital services are to keep growing, then relationships between charities and digital agencies need to grow too.
Last year we spent a lot of time with charities and digital agencies learning more about what makes a great partnership. We also explored the barriers and how people were overcoming them.
As we aggregated the data four interrelated qualities emerged. They declared themselves important for ensuring productive relationships:
In interviews we heard that open communication was core to positive relationships. And though open and clear communication may sound obvious, we also found it wasn’t often put into practice.
When it was practised, charities and agencies told us it made them feel part of one team and invested in one mission. They felt able to act as mutual sources of support and share problems as well as successes.
In practice open and clear communication looked like:
It also included working out costings together so there were no awkward money conversations mid-project.
This meant a lot of honest conversations on both sides and, ‘asking lots of questions until there are no more questions to ask’. At best, it resulted in having a partner invested in the organisation: ‘someone I could turn to’.
We heard how ‘getting the right fit’ between charities and agencies was important for laying a foundation of trust. Some charities wanted people with experience of their way of working. Some took recommendations from trusted sources. Others started developing rapport through informal coffee and chats.
When they got started both partners built their understanding of each other’s skills, process, strengths and needs.
One charity told us: “Trust is absolutely key. Sometimes with fast-turnaround projects you just have to put your trust in them.” Working together on rapport and shared understanding builds this trust.
Start with an informal getting-to-know-you conversation to learn more about each other. Share goals, hopes and fears for the work you might do together. Questions to ask:
Ask and answer these four questions to find out if you’re a good fit:
Then test out working together in a small way, such as by holding a one-off workshop.
For full transparency share:
What we heard from digital agencies is how much they want to work with charities. Some of the best relationships developed when agencies felt excited about a charity’s mission. Agencies wanted the chance to do purposeful work, solve interesting problems and make a social impact.
Good mission alignment accelerates relationship creation and leads to more successful projects. It’s nurtured through user-led and test-driven approaches that keep beneficiaries front of mind.
At the same time, partners need to manage expectations of what can be achieved within time and budget. This keeps the work in scope. Aware partnerships asked early on about each other’s resource limitations. They used milestone reviews to stay focused on achievable goals and the overall mission.
We learned that partnerships always required both partners to do three things together:
Partnerships worked best when both partners acknowledged this and were keen to learn from each other. They asked questions and took a coaching or training approach. They also learnt by doing together e.g. creating mixed design teams of digital and frontline staff.
The need to flex can also be an exciting catalyst for growth. One agency told us that tight budgets can push innovation and lead to streamlining, prioritising and novel adaptations.
Navigating differences and change can also be uncomfortable for both parties.
These four interrelated qualities spoke loudest from our research. They aren’t especially radical and yet we know they can be hard to follow — our research told stories of the negative impact on projects and partnerships when these qualities weren’t present.
Here’s some reading and resources that will help get your partnerships working well:
Hat tip to Matthew McStravick for his work on the original version of this article.
