Take an Example of an Ngo and Analyze Its Partnership with Different Companies. What Are the Benefits of Such a Partnership?

Q: Take an example of an NGO and analyze its partnership with different companies. What

are the benefits of such a partnership?

Ans: For businesses, the "bottom line" includes more than just profits. Investors, customers and other stakeholders want to see progress on a broader range of measures, including environmental and social performance. To achieve such goals, companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are joining forces.

WHY PARTNERSHIP? —NGO PERSPECTIVES

The increasing attention being given by NGOs to partnership with corporations is based, in the

first instance, on an interest in capital mobilization either in the form of cash or gifts-in-kind.

None of the cases studied in the Corporate-NGO Partnership Project could have gotten off the

ground without corporate funding. Such corporate support has become important for NGOs in

part because of the dwindling availability of public funding that has resulted from the budget

constraints facing many governments. It should be noted, however, that NGOs also seek

corporate financial contributions for strategic reasons, since having multiple sources of funding

helps them to avoid the government control that can result from exclusive reliance on public

funding. One major problem for NGOs in seeking corporate funding, however, is that they

normally do not have direct contact with potential corporate contributors. The problem is even

more daunting for small NGOs, and as will be discussed in greater detail subsequently, the use of

intermediary organizations is essential for them in seeking corporate contributions.

Second, the business sector is regarded as a valuable partner from the NGO perspective

because it can offer unique contributions to the resolution of social problems, including research

and development expertise, distribution services, outreach, and marketing support. Marketing

skills, for example, are important for NGOs since many of them provide services to citizens or

earn income from their products and services. The case study on Indonesia describes NGOs

becoming involved in the business of recycling PET bottles, while the case study on the women

weavers of the Panmai Group Partnership tells how this group began to sell gasoline in addition

to clothing as a way of earning funds for themselves and their community. An increasing number

of NGOs are becoming business-like, and partnership with corporations is a powerful instrument

for these NGOs to develop a self-sustaining pattern of activities.

NGOs badly need certain management skills, such as financial management, information

technology, and strategic planning, which are essential to building a stronger institutional

infrastructure. Strategic partnership with corporations provides NGOs with access to skills and

training that they would otherwise not be able to afford. Such transfers of valuable human

resources from corporations to NGOs has become even more effective through corporate

volunteer activities and secondment of corporate staff—activities which have been increasing

significantly in Asian countries in recent years. Bankers Trust's local staff in the Philippines

helped villagers with business plans and provided technical assistance that allowed local NGOs

to build new roads and other infrastructure on their own.

Third, corporations bring to the partnership a sense of accountability and a hard-nosed,

result-oriented attitude that is often lacking in their NGO counterparts. Some NGO

representatives at the Tokyo conference pointed out that NGOs have to develop harder measures

of impact and