Being game-changers is easier with the buddy system.
That was the message June 4 at the daylong event “Uncommon Alliances: Real Partnerships – Real Experiences – Real Impacts” sponsored by the George Washington University School of Business and the U.S. Department of State. Bringing together partnership builders from government, the private sector, nonprofits and academia, speakers and participants explored the importance of partnerships in achieving common goals, the challenges involved and potential solutions to them.
“It is extremely rare that any one organization, be it a university, government or private company, has all of the pieces necessary to solve some of the most challenging problems we face,” GW Provost Steven Lerman said in opening remarks.
Partnerships are the answer, he said, stressing that they must be lasting to be effective.
“It’s essential that we find ways of building durable, effective, public-private university partnerships in ways that solve real problems,” Dr. Lerman said.
In his keynote address, Jon Carson, director of the Office of Public Engagement at the White House, cautioned participants not to assume that they already know about the partnership possibilities in a given area. He saw it happen firsthand not long ago, when young entrepreneurs at a White House event told him they not only didn’t know what the U.S. Small Business Administration could do for them—they didn’t even know it existed.
“You can’t assume anything,” he said.
But when a potential partnership is identified, Mr. Carson said, a face-to-face will go far.
“Despite the power of social media, despite the fact that all this information is available to us, you still can’t beat the in-person meeting to make these partnerships and share these ideas,” he said.
Each partner brings strengths and weaknesses to a partnership, and the White House is no exception, Mr. Carson added. While it needs help with outreach and innovation, officials at the White House have a “convening power”—they can bring people together with relative ease, and that’s, as Mr. Carson said, where the “magic can happen.”
A good example is inviting business leaders from a particular city to D.C. to meet key federal players and potential partners. But something curious happens during those events—often, various city leaders meet each other for the first time, too.
“You wouldn’t think that the White House would be the place where business leaders in Charlotte would meet each other for the first time and think about ways they can work together, but that convening power that the federal side brings can often be the spark of these partnerships.”
The best partnerships share some important characteristics, no matter the players involved, said Kris Balderston, special representative for the Global Partnership Initiative with the U.S. Department of State. They’re the ones that develop “out-of-the-box” thinking. Where partners empathize with the issue they’re involved in, being especially careful to be culturally aware throughout. And where each partner works hard and gets something out of the arrangement, making it more likely the partnership will continue.
Incidentally, those are characteristics that can be found in Indego Africa, a nonprofit social enterprise that works to address poverty by helping Rwandan women sell their products and develop job skills. Besides the women working with the organization, Indego Africa also works with retailers, nonprofits and government agencies.
“The only way our work is made possible is through partnerships,” said Conor French, president of Indego Africa.