How to make charity & digital partner relationships work

Four qualities that make a relationship work and how to put them into practice. Plus an invite to help us take the work deeper.

Relationships between charities and digital partners are at the heart of accelerating digital service growth across the UK’s voluntary and charity sector.

At CAST we’ve carried out research with charities and digital partners to learn more about what makes a great partnership, what the barriers are and how people are going about overcoming them. And because we’re part of this ecosystem ourselves we’re including our experience of working with digital partners, and theirs of working with us.

As we aggregated the data we found four interrelated qualities that loudly and clearly declared themselves important for ensuring positive and productive partner relationships:

1. Open and clear communication — honest, regular, connected
2. Trust and fit — rapport, transparency, delivering
3. Mission alignment — common purpose, user-focus, expectations
4. Flex and mutual learning — mindset, upskilling, transformation

1. Open and clear communication

In interviews we heard repeatedly that ongoing, open communication was a core part of positive working relationships, because you can’t plan ahead for all the twists and turns of a digital project. And though open and clear communication may sound obvious, we also found it wasn’t put into practice often.

When it was practiced, charities and digital partners told us it made them feel part of one team and invested in one mission. They felt able to act as mutual sources of support and share problems as well as successes..

In practice open and clear communication looked like:

• issuing good briefs
• putting regular updates in place sharing
• clear documentation
• raising issues as soon as they occur.

It also included working out costings together so there were no awkward money conversations mid-project.

This meant a lot of honest conversations on both sides and, ‘asking lots of questions until there are no more questions to ask’. At best, it resulted in having a partner invested in the organisation: ‘someone I could turn to’.

How to open up communication

• Keep talking — as you get to know each other; at regular catch ups; anytime something doesn’t feel right; anytime you are stuck.
• Draft a record of everything discussed in your first meeting, including the approach agreed on. This kind of loose Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) can be iterated as the project develops. It will keep track of what’s agreed, where you’re heading and crucially, it can be shared amongst teams to make sure understanding reaches everyone carrying out the work.
• Circle back — if there are more questions that arise after your initial meeting and MOU, note them down and ask them. Assume nothing.

2. Trust and fit

We heard how ‘getting the right fit’ between charities and partners was important for laying a foundation of trust in the relationship. Some charities wanted people with experience of their way of working. Some took recommendations from trusted sources. Others started slowly, developing rapport through informal coffee and chats.

Going into new relationships, partners intentionally built their understanding of each other’s skills, process, strengths and needs.

One charity told us, ‘trust is absolutely key. Sometimes with fast-turnaround projects you just have to put your trust in them.’ Intentionally working together on rapport and shared understanding builds this trust.

How to identify fit and build trust

• Start with an informal getting-to-know-you conversation to learn more about each other. Share goals, hopes and fears for the work you might do together. Questions to ask:
• What would you like to achieve through our work together: for you personally; for the group we serve; for your organisation?
• What are your hopes & fears for this project? This could be related to process, ambition, resources — whatever comes to mind.
• Ask and answer these four questions to find out if you’re a good fit:
• What’s your best experience of working with an agency/charity?
• What made it great?
• What challenges did you have in past partnerships?
• How did you overcome them?
• Test out working together in a small way, eg a one-off workshop.
• Share payment schedules, rate cards and your financial and delivery commitments relating to the project for full transparency.

3. Mission alignment

What we heard from digital partners is how much they want to work with charities. Some of the best relationships developed when digital partners were excited about a charity’s core mission, and when they, wanted to do purposeful work, solve interesting problems and make a social impact.

Good mission alignment can accelerate relationship creation and lead to more successful projects. It’s nurtured through user-led and test-driven approaches that keep beneficiaries front of mind.

At the same time, expectations of what can be achieved within time and budget need to be managed by both partners to keep the work in scope. Partnerships aware of this ask early on about each other’s resource limitations and use milestone reviews to stay focused on achievable goals and the overall mission.

How to achieve mission alignment

• Spend time finding a partner who is excited about your mission. Join Digital Charities Slack channel to post questions and ask for recommendations.
• Keep focused on creating value to the people or cause you’re collectively working towards. Restate this focus at the start of catch ups and share regular stories about the people or cause. Keep referring to your project plan and MOU to avoid mission creep. Resist going too far down ‘the extra mile’ route and stay focused on what you can achieve within time and budget.

4. Flex and mutual learning

We learned that in order to collaborate both charities and digital partners are having to learn new skills, adapt to new contexts and processes, and flex their normal rhythm and pace of work.

Partnerships worked best when both partners acknowledged this and were keen to learn from each other. They bridged knowledge gaps by asking questions, taking a coaching or training approach, and learning by doing together, for example creating cross-discipline design teams of digital and frontline charity staff.

The need to flex can also be exciting and a catalyst for growth — one digital partner told us that tight budgets can push innovation and lead to streamlining, prioritising and exciting adaptations.

Navigating differences and change can also be uncomfortable for both parties.

How to flex and learn together

1. Go into the partnership confident in what you know and can share, confident in your partner’s expertise, and open to what you can learn. Our playbook’s ‘Mindset’ section offers useful advice here.
2. Establish occasional brown bag lunches. This is an opportunity to come together informally, with one person delivering light touch relevant learning e.g. ‘How we became comfortable with uncertainty’. Alternate between charity and partner offices and learning topics.
3. Ask questions and take notes about each other’s working rhythms and pace, sign off processes and decision makers. Design your own rhythm for your project based on your goal, approach, capacity and resources.
4. Build in a mutual coaching relationship between a key team member from each party. This will help both parties develop new skills.

Had an experience? Help take this work deeper

These four interrelated qualities spoke loudest from our research. They aren’t especially radical and yet we know they can be hard to follow — our research told stories of the negative impact on projects and partnerships when these qualities weren’t present.

Please let us know your experience of these four qualities. We’d love to hear what’s worked for you, what hasn’t and your ideas for change. That way we can together develop better support and more great relationships across the sector.

In particular, we’re interested in hearing from charities and agencies who have had a project in the last year that hasn’t worked out well. By understanding more about this, we’ll all be in a better position to do the work that we love doing. Email matt@wearecast.org.uk about this.

More resources for great partnerships

Here’s some reading and resources that will help get your partnerships working well:

• To walk through how to start your partnership off on the right footing, try our Conversation Menu, created by the Tech for Good community.
• A guide to ‘buying service design’ from design agency Snook, has useful preparation for charities wanting to work with digital partners too.
• A guide to contracting agile developers from digital product studio Ayup.
• 10 design principles to help charities build better digital services.