Being good is good for business?

No longer merely an image-boosting exercise, partnerships between corporations and NGOs are becoming increasingly important to the business models and strategic aims of both sectors.This was a key finding of the annual Corporate-NGO Partnerships Barometer recently released by C&E Advisory.

There are of course many reasons for the growth in partnering between companies and charities. Innovation ranks highly as one of these reasons. The poll of 120 leading companies and charities which formed one of the key data sources for the C&E report found that approximately two-thirds (67%) of corporate respondents and over half (52%) of charity respondents, cite innovation as a key reason for cross-sector partnership.

There’s a growing list of significant, competency based corporate-NGO collaborations successfully combining the unique assets of each player to deliver service or product solutions that simultaneously meet clear commercial goals, as well as securing deep social or environmental value.

In a remarkable debut, the partnership between GSK and Save the Children, which was launched only in March last year, stormed into third place in the poll of the Most Admired Corporate-NGO Partnerships. Drawing on their respective competencies, GSK and Save the Children have combine forces to help save the lives of 1 million children. This includes working to transform an antiseptic used in mouthwash into a life-saving product for new-borns, whilst also rolling-out the powder form of an antibiotic in child-friendly doses to help fight pneumonia - one of the main killers of children under five. This very mission-led partnership has strategic relevance for GSK and the charity.

So what key lessons can GSK and Save the Children share with The Marketing Society community at this point in their partnership journey?

Governance: Putting in place a strong governance structure to lead and guide the partnership development, with CEO and senior level leadership involvement from the beginning is critical.

Continuous learning: Since the launch of the partnership the partners have continued to learn, review progress, address challenges and work in a very different way to put in place detailed plans for delivering the partnership ambitions.  

Effective stakeholder involvement: This has been key to gaining ownership and engagement and includes:

• Working hard to involve the local teams from both organisations in DRC and Kenya from the start, to develop flagship programmes that meet the needs of those on the ground.
• Recognising the importance of engaging key internal and external stakeholders from the start – both to inspire GSK’s 100,000 employees globally and to be transparent and open about the partnership approach and new ways of working.
• Enabling ownership within the international markets by providing a communications framework for local adaptation. In addition, GSK splits the funds raised by employees such that 50% fund local Save the Children programmes, with the other 50% going towards the global partnership.

It is still early days for the GSK-Save the Children partnership, but the boldness of their approach has captured attention – and there are already lessons for others to learn.

The C&E Corporate-NGO Partnerships Barometer report is available for download at www.candeadvisory/barometer. It is the fourth in an annual series of practitioner-led studies. Manny Amadi, MVO is CEO of C&E Advisory, a ‘business & society’ enterprise.

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