What is a donor partnership?

A donor partnership is created when two or more individuals or organizations find it in their common interest to work together toward a specific outcome.

Individuals and organizations can make partnerships. A partnership can exist between two organizations, an organization and an individual, a group of five organizations and 30 individuals, or any other combination you can think of.

Donors have a basis for becoming partners if they are able to agree on a purpose, a task, a project, or a desired outcome which meets the interests of all partners and can be achieved better, faster, or more efficiently if they unite their efforts. Finding a common agenda is a fundamental starting point.

Partner individuals or organizations do not necessarily share the same mission or ultimate goal. The Soros foundations may find it in their interest to work with an organization that has a stated mission other than building open society, such as economic development, children's welfare, or environmental protection. In fact, most donors have a more narrow or targeted mission than the broad aim of "building open society" of the Soros foundations network.

Partners can bring different things to their partnership. These might be funds, goods, services, technical assistance, technology transfer, training opportunities, implementation capacity, legitimacy, publicity, access, or information. Partners do not always bring equal things and equal shares. Often, they contribute complementary resources to the partnership, depending on their capacity and strengths. If partners are to collaborate successfully, however, they must bring some trust in each other and in the partnership.

Partnerships can be highly structured or less formal. Some partnerships take the form of a new, ad hoc organization or independent project built from the partnership. Other partnerships may be a less structured collaboration of efforts. Whether the structure is "tight" or "loose," it is essential that the partners know what they expect from each other and what they want to achieve together.

Partners can join their efforts in many ways. Some of the partnership arrangements most used or most likely to be used by the Soros foundations are described in this section.