Nonprofits and Governments Are Looking for Love

(Illustration by iStock/cherezoff)

“We partner with the government.”

Nonprofits love to say it and donors love to hear it. After all, governments are the most promising doer-at-scale, especially in sectors like education and healthcare. Even early-stage nonprofits often rely on government partnerships for outreach and program delivery.

However, what exactly does a “government partnership” mean? How much nuance and variation does the term conceal? Some partnerships involve significant levels of engagement and commitment, making them a reliable pathway to scale. Others are merely cosmetic and result in little more than photo opportunities.

The social sector’s overreliance on the catch-all term “government partnership” makes it challenging to talk about partnerships rigorously. Countless metrics and frameworks have been developed to measure growth, impact, and financial sustainability. But what tools are deployed when assessing the value and nature of a government partnership?

Fortunately, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel: Society has already developed a rich vocabulary to facilitate conversations about human relationships. The same terminology can be used to describe the spectrum of commitment levels in nonprofit-government relationships.

“Hello there!”

Some governments actively seek partnerships with nonprofits, with structured programs and online application forms that are designed to create transparency around intentions and value propositions (just like online dating platforms). However, the majority of nonprofit-government partnerships begin the old-fashioned way: slowly and through mutual connections.

Many nonprofits begin by supporting frontline government workers, with a “bottom-up” approach that relies on working upwards through a bureaucracy. For example, a healthcare nonprofit can offer a service to employees of a local public health clinic, perhaps with the consent of a friendly clinic manager. Nonprofits can claim to be “partnering with the government” at this early stage, even though the government employees that genuinely matter for large-scale partnership purposes (such as those in the national ministry with decision-making power) are the equivalent of a distant crush.

A key milestone occurs when the nonprofit leaders first establish personal contact with a key decision-maker, such as a deputy minister or director, which can happen either through bottom-up navigation of a bureaucracy (the “going through friends” approach) or through direct outreach (the “walk up in a bar” approach). Either way, mere contact with a senior bureaucrat does not signal the start of a true government partnership, just like a friendly conversation with a romantic interest does not signal the start of a romantic relationship. At this stage, the government and nonprofit are just friends. A friendship with key decision-makers can be an invaluable source of guidance and information, but it’s not a partnership until there’s meaningful commitment and expenditure of time, energy, and/or money.

Most nonprofits will seek to build upon a friendship by launching a pilot program with the government, often preceded by a signed memorandum of understanding. However, this does not constitute the start of a partnership either. Pilot programs are first dates, not engagement ceremonies. They are experiments which are designed to understand and evaluate the merits of a true partnership. They do not create any long-term commitment for the government, and they rarely require a significant investment of time, energy, or money.

(We’re both guilty of claiming to be in a government partnership based on a memorandum of understanding or pilot, but that’s equivalent to claiming to be in a relationship with a romantic partner after a successful first date.)

“So what are we?”

If a pilot doesn’t constitute a partnership, then what does?

Lines are not always clear in romantic relationships, and labels like “partner” aren’t typically adopted until one of the parties awkwardly asks for clarification. Unfortunately, the same is often true with nonprofits and governments.

When the time comes for clarification, the discussion should revolve around commitment. A genuine partnership is, at minimum, a committed relationship, where both nonprofit and government have committed to invest the necessary resources to maintain and strengthen the relationship for the foreseeable future.

This is not to say that commitment is always a prerequisite for successful or long-lasting nonprofit-government relationships. Some advocacy-focused nonprofits, for example, achieve their goals by working with governments on many isolated, independent campaigns spanning many years without true long-term commitment. However, while such a casual relationship can be mutually beneficial, it is not equivalent to a partnership.

Putting a Ring on It

Commitments are rarely absolute or unconditional. Practical considerations like distance or socioeconomic incompatibility can jeopardize romantic relationships, and the same is true for most nonprofit-government partnerships. Risks are particularly high for any partnership which the government does not fully fund, as such partnerships are explicitly or implicitly conditional on the nonprofit being able to provide the necessary funds.

Can permanent and unconditional commitments ever be secured? Romantic partners attempt to do so through the institution of marriage, which is designed to create a commitment through sickness and health. The analogous state only arises when policy mechanisms lead to formal government adoption of a new program. Only a budget allocation can provide the same assurances of long-term commitment that wedding rings do.

What happens if a relationship ends? In rare and promising instances, the program survives the end of a nonprofit-government partnership in full custody of the government. The nonprofit may continue to provide a supporting role, but it no longer has decision-making power or influence over the program’s evolution and direction.

What makes for a healthy relationship?

It’s normal for nonprofits and governments to have different interests. While a shared commitment to a shared definition of impact is ideal, it is not strictly necessary. Impact is rarely the only driving force, just like love is rarely the only driving force in personal relationships. Other needs and desires, both personal and organizational, matter and must be appreciated. For a partnership to be sustainable, both parties need to understand what the other is looking for, and need to provide it.

Even the strongest and healthiest relationships can come to an end. Government relationships are particularly vulnerable to shifts in the policy landscape, and their stability can vary significantly over time. Relationships in environments with high political turnover can be inherently unstable as new names and faces often introduce new conditions and preferences. This can be equally challenging whether the nonprofit-government relationship is a friendship or a marriage.

Substantial differences in commitment levels can be another source of stress. One extreme case is one-sided partnerships where all the value is provided by one party. This is unfortunately common in the social sector, as nonprofits often provide free services (such as training sessions and reports) without the government taking any responsibility or ownership. Such relationships can quickly lead to toxic levels of over-dependency or over-commitment.

It is worth remembering that serious commitment isn’t for everyone. Many nonprofits aim for marriage, but the optimal relationship type depends on the nonprofit’s program as well as the government and policy environment. Programs requiring extensive government support might not be able to scale without marriage, but others might be able to reach their scale goals through a casual relationship. In turbulent and toxic settings, marriage might not be a realistic or desirable aspiration.

Finally, while divorce and single-parent custody is rarely the desired endpoint of a romantic marriage, it is frequently the optimal outcome of a government-nonprofit marriage. Full government adoption and funding of a nonprofit-initiated program can be a stable and healthy situation that allows impact to scale and persist. Letting go of a loved program can be the right thing to do for a nonprofit, no matter how difficult it might be.

Ultimately, every nonprofit needs to develop its own approach to government relationships. There’s no one-size-fits-all blueprint that applies to all programs. What matters most is whether nonprofits truly know what type of relationship they’re in and what they’re looking for.

Read more stories by Vikas Birhma & Abdulhamid Haidar.