Mergers & Partnerships

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Maximize Partnership Success

The Opportunity - and the Challenge:

• Two bi-coastal foundations, one family and the other one corporate, formed a joint international women's initiative to accomplish more together than either could separately.
• Excited by achieving their goals years earlier than expected, the foundations' leaders thought they could do even more if they addressed some underlying tension.
• The partners also wanted to determine the next multi-year funding to plan the initiative's future work.
• The partners sought an impartial outside consultant, who understood for-profit and nonprofit environments, to help them resolve their relationship issues and agree on their future funding commitment.

"KrasnePlows could appreciate our different cultures and translate it so the other could understand."

- President, Corporate Foundation

The Expertise - KrasnePlows:

• Identified common ground and points of concern and shared the findings.
• Facilitated discussions between the two partners, translating each person's views in ways the other could understand and appreciate.
• Clarified each partner's role, responsibilities and the joint initiative's expectations.
• Recommended steps each partner could take to improve their working relationship.
• Prepared different funding options, and the trade-offs implied for each, to help one partner set its future funding commitment.

"You heard each of us and helped us bridge the gap."

- Program Officer, Corporate Foundation & Initiative Director, Family Foundation

The Result:

• A memorandum of understanding that confirmed the partnership's shared goals, described each partner's role and responsibilities, and listed their individual commitments to the joint initiative.
• More time and energy devoted to achieving the initiative's shared goals.
• A deeper commitment to working together and learning from each other, starting with a staff fellowship program.
• A continued multi-year funding commitment and clear action plan to leverage each partner's strength and enhance the initiative's impact.

"It really helped to clarify each partner's expectations and roles. We'll do that upfront now with future collaborations.

- Initiative Director, Family Foundation

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