I - The concept of partnership

The concept of partnership has been around for quite some time. However, it has never been more widespread and popular than it is today. Some believe it is the opportunity for non-profit organizations to have access to more funding than they would through the government, while others fear it is the product of yet another corporate strategy to generate profit and gain social control over governments and other social organizations (e.g., trade unions).

Whatever the reason for the recent trend in partnerships, cuts in public funding and the gender gap in non-profit aid are hurting women's organizations and women's education, health, and well-being.⁽¹⁾ In Canada, less than 4% of donations from foundations are specifically oriented toward women's issues. The same appears to be true of corporate philanthropy.⁽²⁾

With these facts in mind, one may begin to wonder what kind of future a shift from government funding to institutional funding will bring for women and women's organizations.

1. What is a partnership?

The concept of giving has evolved from the concept of charity to the concept of philanthropy and of partnership. The concept of charity - giving voluntarily to those in need - has been around since human-kind introduced private property. The concept of philanthropy has also been around since the dawn of the state of property. It is defined in the Oxford dictionary as: "the love of mankind" or simply charity on a large scale.⁽³⁾ In other words, charity and philanthropy became possible when people started to possess things and expertise. In contrast, the concept of partnership, as we know it today - a collaboration between a non-profit organization and an institution in support of those in need - implies a bilateral relationship between the partners. This means that while the institution is assisting a non-profit to serve those in need, the non-profit is serving the institution by providing it with services (i.e., volunteer training, education), tax deduction, credibility, etc.

"A partnership is an ongoing collaborative venture between business/industry, government, and community organizations. Established by mutual agreement between two or more parties, a partnership has clear responsibilities and requires acceptance of shared contributions. In addition, a partnership addresses a common issue or set of issues for the purpose of dialogue, exploration of solutions and/or coordinated action. It is a long-term commitment built on a thorough understanding of, and respect for, each other's needs. Compatible with each partner's strategic plan and objectives, a partnership fosters a change in conditions and encourages the achievement of solutions acceptable to all participants."⁽⁴⁾

In other words, and in the context of the Vancouver Women's Fund, by partnership we mean an ongoing collaboration between a non-profit (i.e., a women's organization) and an institution (i.e., a union, a service club, a small company, a corporation). Although the goal for women's organizations of such a collaboration would be to support violence against women prevention programs, it may be much different for the other parties involved in the partnership. For example, a corporation may support such a venture with the purpose of gaining credibility and of making profits. That is the reason a partnership often requires clearly defined goals, objectives, and ethical considerations.

2. Ideas about how women's organizations and institutions can assist each other

There are two ways non-profit organizations and institutions can assist each other and form partnerships: through financial support, and through the provision of services and materials or non-financial support. In exchange for the financial or non-financial support, non-profit organizations can give institutions a charitable tax deduction (refer to Revenue Canada Tax Interpretation Bulletin IT-297R2), public recognition, volunteer training, etc.

Services and material based support

Material donations: small and medium sized institutions may not be able to afford or choose not to support a project or an organization financially. However, they may be able to help by giving material goods such as paper, books, chairs, and equipment.

Service donations: some institutions may not have any material goods to give non-profit organizations but they may be able to give insight and expertise.

Company space: some institutions do not use their entire office space at all times and may agree to lend their conference rooms, meetings rooms, boardrooms or kitchens.

Company in-house services: some institutions will let a non-profit organization use their equipment such as photocopy machines, postal services, data processing equipment, printing services, and secretarial services.

Employee volunteer programs: some institutions have discovered that employee volunteer programs can build employee loyalty, boost morale, encourage teamwork and can be an opportunity for their employees to learn new skills. Thus, some may encourage their staff to volunteer on their free time or sometimes on their work time.

Special event support: some institutions may be able to help a non-profit organization with a special event by allowing their employees to assist with it.

Supplies: institutions often benefit from discounts when they buy supplies and equipment or services. Some may be willing to include a non-profit's order in theirs.

A Name: some institutions are willing to lend their name for a particular event. This can be a way to gain recognition from the public and thereby to gain support and contributions.

Financially based support

One-time donation: this type of contribution can serve to fund specific programs or events, or purchase equipment. It is often called a sponsorship.

Annual on-going funding: this type of contribution is usually provided on a annual basis and may generate enough financial assistance to fund the core of a non-profit organization.

Loans: corporate foundations as well as large institutions may consider low-interest or interest-free loans.

Employee matching gifts: this program is an incentive for employees to support a non-profit organization. An institution may offer to match equally, or in a set number of multiples, the amount donated by its staff. Some institutions decide which non-profit or type of non-profit is eligible for the grants.

Employee donations: some institutions set up automatic payroll deductions for their employees to donate to a non-profit organization.

Employee charity trusts: these funds are independent of the institution's own donation program. They are administered by the employees themselves. Therefore employees decide what and who they donate to without having to consult the institution's policy.

Challenge grants: these grants vary slightly from the matching grant by challenging a non-profit organization to raise money from its community and by offering to match what it has raised.

Informal staff fundraising: institutions may allow their employees to become involved in helping a non-profit fundraiser. For example, they may help organize an employee picnic fundraiser or the sale of various items, such as chocolates, calendars, books and other small articles provided by the non-profit organization.

Cause-related marketing: this way of fundraising means that the institution will give a non-profit organization the money or part of the money that they receive from the sale of a product. Usually, this means that the company will use this to gain broad public recognition for its contribution to the non-profit organization.

Event marketing: this type of fundraising is usually a special event that will attract a lot of people. The company may pay for all or part of the cost of the event including the publicizing of it. In return, the company gets broad public recognition.

These ways in which an institution may be able to assist a non-profit organization may not necessarily fit the goals, objectives and ethical considerations of women's organizations. However, they may trigger ideas for other forms of partnership which may be more appropriate.

II - Examples of partnerships

The literature on institutions partnering specifically with women's organizations in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia is relatively scarce. It appears that, although service and material partnerships exist - for example, BWSS, Liberty Thrift Store and Fairweather Stores have set up a clothing donation system - they are rarely mentioned in the literature.

However, other partnerships between institutions and non-profit organizations can be found in institutional literature. The Canadian Women's Fund, VanCity Credit Union and its Community Foundation, as well as the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy provide various examples of partnerships between institutions and non-profit organizations.

1. The Canadian Women's Fund experience⁽⁵⁾

The Canadian Women's Fund (CWF) was formed in 1987. The founders started by developing the Fund's mission statement and a set of guiding principles. To date, the mission statement is to help women and girls achieve greater self-reliance and economic independence in Canada. The fundamental principle is based on the belief that the most effective way to social change is to create partnerships in order to address the needs of women and girls for health, economic growth, and the success of Canadian society as a whole.

a) Corporate contribution/donation

The Bank of Montreal became a major partner of CWF in 1992, donating $100,000 over 5 years. Together, the CWF and the Bank of Montreal worked to develop a granting program to support micro enterprise projects with low-income women. In addition, the President of the Bank of Montreal spoke publicly and to the press to announce the CWF fundraising campaign. In exchange, the Bank of Montreal acquired the status of a socially responsible financial institution, distinguishing itself from its competitors.

b) Social/cause related marketing

In 1992, Tambrands Canada Inc. assisted CWF by lending their public relations and marketing expertise to CWF in order to help raise funds to support shelters for assaulted women in Toronto. The goal for Tambrands in partnering with CWF was to build their image as a company that cared about women.

c) Sponsorship

Judith Finlayson, author of "Against the Current; Canadian Women Talk about Fifty Years of Life on the Job", approached CWF and Canada Trust at the same time. As a result, Canada Trust sponsored a six-city seminar which allowed Ms. Finlayson to promote her book. CWF benefited from $16 of every book sold, raising a total of $32,000, and Canada Trust got public recognition for supporting a good cause.

d) Strategic alliance

In 1995, the Body Shop approached CWF to work on a national campaign on violence against women. This partnership also involved the YWCA. Through the sale of T-shirts and other merchandise, three national campaigns on violence against women were made possible. While the Body Shop was working to build its image as a caring company, the partnership enabled CWF to raise $76,000 in total and the YWCA $70,000.

2. The VanCity Credit Union/Community Foundation experience

Established in 1989, the VanCity Community Foundation has developed several partnerships which emphasize affordable housing, employment development and non-profit enterprise.

VanCity Community Foundation has donated $7,500 to help Habitat for Humanity, an international non-profit organization, build a 29-unit residential building on Commercial Drive, in Vancouver. This partnership is intended to support fourteen low-income families who have volunteered 500 hours of labour to build this unit, move into housing they can afford in an area of Vancouver where housing is very expensive.

VanCity Community Foundation has partnered with the Vancouver Foundation, the United Way, and the McConnel Foundation to support community self-sufficiency projects. These pilot projects will provide technical assistance and training to organizations wishing to create self-sufficiency by developing income-producing activities, build their credit, and try new fundraising methods.

VanCity Community Foundation has sponsored a forum which brought business, government, labour and academics together to discuss the future of work.

The staff at VanCity Credit Union has contributed $300,000 to VanCity Place for Youth. The Place has 55 housing units, store front counselling and referral spaces for youth at risk. VanCity Credit Union has also partnered with Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN) in support of parents with special needs children, assisting in the publication of self-help books for parents.

These partnerships and others have served to build VanCity Credit Union's profile as a socially concerned and responsible financial institution, which are among the founding principles of this institution.

3. Other Canadian examples of partnership⁽⁶⁾

The following are additional examples of partnerships between institutions and non-profit organizations.

In Lethbridge, Alberta, the Lethbridge Herald provides space for the local Community Volunteer Centre, publishes recognition of the Volunteer of the Month, sponsors special events, and supplies its own volunteers for committees. In return, the Centre assists some 70 member agencies in the community and co-ordinates their public-relations needs.

In Saskatchewan, volunteers from Sask Power partner with the Canadian Mental Health Association through a program called Friends for Life. The funds from Sask Power cover the administrative costs of the program, and volunteers develop media campaigns and sit on executive committees, while the association runs the initiative and involves the wider community.

In Ontario, the Parry Sound Rainbow Theatre has a program called Partnerships in Action. This program gives people the opportunity to develop professional skills. Businesses from the Parry Sound Area Chamber of Commerce help by developing marketing campaigns, sponsorship ads, and brochures, and by providing volunteers for the program. In turn, the Rainbow Theatre creates joint tourism packages for visitors and publicizes the community across Ontario and the northern United States.

III - Criticisms of partnerships

Decreasing government funding, and increasing demands for services from those in need, is forcing non-profit organizations, in particular women's organizations, to find new partners, and new sources of funding.

1. The debate

The debate around the new wave of partnerships is still very recent. Although the idea has been around for a long time, it has never been as much of a necessity for non-profit organizations to find partners as it is today. The discourse which deals with this issue of partnership appears predominantly pro-partnership regardless of the potential social consequences that a switch from government social responsibility to corporate social responsibility may generate.

The Canadian Centre for Philanthropy is one of the largest publishers of literature on partnerships. The Centre offers a wide range of examples of partnerships between institutions and non-profit organizations. But, this literature⁽⁷⁾ is often one-sided. It promotes partnership as the best way for non-profit organizations to increase their operating income, visibility, and public education; to establish a diverse income base; to gain experience in managing and promoting campaigns; to reinforce their business skills; and to attract future donors and business partners.⁽⁸⁾

However, it ignores the fact that with the recent social reforms, non-profit organizations are competing with each other to find funding. Women's organizations are having more difficulty than any other non-profit organization because, in addition to delivering direct services to all women, they also advocate women's rights. As the Panel on Accountability and Governance in the Voluntary Sector⁽⁹⁾ explains, this means that women's organizations need their "political space" to be able to fulfil their mandate as social actors:

"They need the "political space" in which to operate; that is, they require a recognition that they have legitimate and valuable roles to play in [society]. At times, this includes being critical of governments."

The fierce competition that stems from the recent cut-backs in public funding is giving institutions the power to be demanding and choosy towards their potential partners:

"Simply put, the days when companies merely wrote cheques are all but gone. Today, largely due to the dramatic increase in funding requests, more and more companies are seeking greater focus in their community investment initiatives. Their desire to ensure maximum returns for their community investments has led to greater emphasis on accountability and results."⁽¹⁰⁾

"Charities need to be more strategic in their approach to corporations, get better at communicating results to the results-based private sector, and co-ordinate their fundraising approaches."⁽¹¹⁾

As a result, women's organizations are being forced to compromise their work as actors of change and the way they work as collectives. In fact, they are being pressured to fit the institutional results-oriented ideology even though, as the Panel on Accountability and Governance in the Voluntary Sector explains, it is fundamentally inappropriate to their work.

"Overly demanding regulations or highly onerous reporting requirements, for example, would merely have the effect of crowding out small, volunteer grassroots organizations that are crucial to a vibrant civil society."⁽¹²⁾

Thus, in addition to being forced to compromise their work, the shift in government funding to institutional funding is also bombarding women's organizations - who are underfunded, and understaffed - with reporting requirements.

Advocates of the concept of partnership question the role of government. However, they do not address the same criticism towards institutions which are like governments beginning to impose more and more demands upon non-profit organizations to fit their notion of "community investment":

"The federal and provincial government may play a part in project funding, but those opportunities are either too limited or too narrowly focused on their objectives, not the objectives of the [non-profit] organizations."⁽¹³⁾

The questions of how funding is directed within the voluntary sector and who it is distributed to, also are not addressed in the literature on partnerships between non-profits and institutions.

2. Women's organizations' reality

The dilemma for women's organizations is that cuts in government funding have left them with little financial, material, or human resources to support their efforts. In this context, the concept of partnership comes as a tempting opportunity for them to increase their resources, gain visibility, and learn new managing and promotional skills.⁽¹⁴⁾

However, women's organizations are aware that, by partnering with institutions, they may be taking several risks. They face the risks of losing total control of their programs, of having to fit the funding requirements set by institutions, of being shunted from their initial mission, and of being overburdened by reporting demands. Furthermore, by partnering with institutions which are not ethically appropriate to the feminist principles, women's organizations also risk losing credibility in the face of their clients and of their past and present partners.

3. The Body Shop experience⁽¹⁵⁾

According to the U.S. McLibel Support Campaign, the Body Shop is an example of a corporation that has used partnerships with non-profit organizations to build an image that does not fit its actions.

Throughout the years, the Body Shop has "successfully" built an image of a caring company which protects the environment, respects First Nations people, is against animal testing, and supports violence against women prevention programs.

However, the U.S. McLibel Support Campaign argues that behind this image lies a very different reality. According to them, the Body Shop, like many other companies, is encouraging consumerism. They feel that through marketing and advertising, the Body Shop is sending the message that, by buying more and more of their products instead of someone else's, people are doing the "right thing." The U.S. McLibel Support Campaign argues that by mass producing, the Body Shop is using the world's resources faster than its environmentally-concerned customers think. They also argue that the Body Shop's mass production results in polluting the environment by simply transporting its products to its 47 worldwide stores. Furthermore, the U.S. McLibel Support Campaign suggests that the Body Shop is buying products from companies which test their products on animals.

4. Questions for the future

Partnerships contain both pros and cons for women's organizations. While it may enable them to distance themselves from government project funding requirements, it often forces them to compromise their ethics to fit institutional funding requirements. And, although it may promise more financial security, it may also mean less funding and more restricted resources.

Many social activists⁽¹⁶⁾ think that a future based on institutional funding of non-profit organizations will be the end of citizenship and democracy, and that partnerships constitute another "silent coup" from the big corporations in their attempt to dominate.⁽¹⁷⁾ Women's organizations would then be at the mercy of corporate dollars and would have to compete with many other non-profits for those dollars rather than receiving their core funding from public sources. In contrast, others⁽¹⁸⁾ believe that it is the opportunity for non-profits to force corporations to become socially responsible.

Diane Lister, president of the Hospital for Sick Children Foundation, addressed the importance of more precisely defining partnerships between non-profits and corporations. In her opinion, it is crucial for non-profits to clearly define their responsibilities with their partner to make sure that they do not find themselves putting more at stake than they initially bargained for. She feels it is the only way non-profits will remain free-standing, in control, and true to their mission in any partnership.⁽¹⁹⁾

However, the problems that partnerships cause for women's organizations go beyond a clear definition of responsibilities. The main problem lies in a predominantly male dominated society which continues to reinforce women's subordinate position in society. This latter phenomenon transpires through the hierarchy of social issues by which certain groups are perceived as "more or less deserving than others." Therefore, we ask: where will women's organizations find support in a societal context where less than 4% of donations from foundations and corporate philanthropy are specifically oriented toward women's issues?

Endnotes

^1. Feminist Majority Foundation. Funding Bias Decreases Women's Opportunities, Bias Jeopardizes Women's Futures, New Media Publishing. 1995. Online. Available at www.feminist.org

^2. Canadian Women's Foundation. Investing in the Power of Women and the Dreams of Girls. 1996. Online. Available at www.cdnwomen.org

^3. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

^4. Sims, Sandra. Creating Effective Partnerships with Business. A Guide for Charities and Nonprofits in Canada. Imagine, Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, 1996.

^5. Op. cit., Canadian Women's Foundation, 1997.

^6. Canadian Centre for Philanthropy. Helping Canada Celebrate a New Spirit of Community. 1997. Online. Available at www.ccp.ca

^7. Op. cit., Sims, Sandra, 1996; McClintock, Norah. "Shifting Ground: In Search of Leadership." Front & Centre, Vol.3/4 (1996), CCP; Ries, Barry. "Up Against Big Brother." Front & Centre, Vol.2/5 (1995), CCP; Vale, Norma. "All for a Good Cause." Front & Centre, Vol.2/2 (1995), CCP; Marshall, Heather. "Strengths in Numbers." Front & Centre, Vol. 1/5 (1994), CCP.

^8. Steckel, Richard & Robin Simons. Doing Best by Doing Good. Penguin Group, 1992.

^9. Broadbent, Ed, et al. "Panel on Accountability and Governance in the Voluntary Sector." Helping Canadians Help Canadians: Improving Governance and Accountability in the Voluntary Sector. 1998. Online. Available at www.vsr-trsb.net/pagvs/

^10. Nyp, Gary. "Looking for Corporate Support?" Front & Centre, Vol.5/4 (1998), Canadian Centre for Philanthropy.

^11. Ibid.

^12. Op. cit., Panel on Accountability and Governance in the Voluntary Sector, 1998.

^13. Op. cit., McClintock, Norah, 1996.

^14. Op. cit., Steckel & Simons, 1992.

^15. U.S. McLibel Support Campaign. What's Wrong With the Body Shop? 1998. Online. Available at www.mcspotlight.org

^16. Dobbin, Murray. The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen. Toronto: Stoddart, 1998; Korten, David. When Corporations Rule the World. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1995; Browne, Paul. "Canadians Have to Cut their Dependency on Government." In CCPA Monitor, June 1998; Clark, Tony. Silent Coup: Confronting the Big Business Takeover of Canada. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and James Lorimer & Company, 1997.

^17. Op. cit., Clarke, Tony, 1997.

^18. Canadian Centre for Philanthropy: Adapting to the New Era of Corporate Strategic Philanthropy, 1996; Charity Gets Marketing Savvy, 1995; Get in Touch with the Institutional Soul, 1995. Online. Available at www.ccp.ca

^19. Charity Village. Corporate Support May "Cost" Charities More than they Bargained For. 1995. Online. Available at www.charityvillage.com