Common Barriers
- Competition between organisations
- Reluctance to partnership based on lack or misunderstanding of programme
- Limited connection or networking opportunities with other organisation serving adolescent girls in the community (NGOs, government groups, businesses)
Incentives or motivations for Engagement
- Advertising for their business or organisation
- A mutually beneficial partnership in which you provide them with a service and they provide you with resources
- Increased respect in the community
- Larger reach and more beneficiaries
Strategies for Engagement
- Communicate frequently and transparently about goals, needs, and challenges.
- Demonstrate the successes of your programme.
- People want to partner with a successful programme that is positively impacting girls and the community.
- Be professional.
- Conduct regular meetings.
- Follow up with reporting on progress, events, and impact.
- Assure them of visibility or invisibility, depending on the desire of the partner.
- Express gratitude, publicly thanking each partner for support, using logos and other materials provided by the partner.
- Be proactive, reaching out to organisations rather than waiting for them to contact you.
- Organise a day of dialogue, bringing together various organisations serving the same demographic in the community for discussions on ways to better work together.
- Offer to advertise for a local business partner at events.
- Connect with champions or advocates for your programme who are part of the resource provider’s community; e.g., a parent who is in the Council whose land you use.
- Participate or support other organisations and their activities through volunteer provision or promotion of information.
- This expands your network and creates visibility for your work and access to new potential resource providers.
How It Works
Rwanda
Association of Kigali Women in Sports has a very small budget, and prices to rent office space are very high. They have created a partnership with the Rwanda IOC and the Rwanda National Sport Association so that they have office space for free at the national football stadium in Kigali.
South Africa
Girls and Football South Africa, an NGO based in Cape Town that works with adolescent girls using football and media, created a relationship with Banyana Banyana, the South African national female football team. Players from the team come to camps organized by the organisation and serve as role models, inviting the girls in the programme to national team games.