IYF’s experience leveraging

partnerships for youth development

WB Y2Y Conference

Session 4: Leveraging Partnerships: The Role of Various Stakeholders

October 23, 2008

Overview

Partnerships are fundamental to IYF’s

business model…– Investing in a network of locally sustainable

youth serving organizations– Building alliances across sectors, in

particular with companies, to promote “ESS” effectiveness, scale and sustainability of youth programming

IYF Partner Network – Global Presence

3

71 countries; 166 partners

“Sub-Networks”

Programs Stats Geographical Regional Focus

EEA 6 countries 46 partners

East Asia/Pacific, South Asia, Middle East/North Africa

Entra21 (Phase 1) 18 countries 32 partners

Latin America/Caribbean

EAYPI 3 countries 16 partners

Sub-Saharan Africa

Make a Connection 26 countries 28 partners

Europe, North America, LaC, East Asia/Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa

Global Fund for Youth Development

19 countries 33 partners

East Asia/Pacific, South Asia, Europe, Latin America/Caribbean

4

Benefits of working in-network with local NGOs

• Program delivery with capacity building• Local relevance of programming • Link to national agendas and platforms • Collaboration with local networks of NGOs and

other key stakeholders • Sustainability of efforts – long lasting links to

communities • Lower operational costs • Opportunity to build strategic global alliances with

donors (across themes and regions)

Working with Companies –Partnership Values and Principles

Youth as Assets: Positive potential versus relief or remediation

Co-creation: All partners collaborate on design and implementation

Local Relevance: Programs locally defined; rooted in local youth need Leverage: Multi-themed, multi-country, multi-sector alliance building

plus product integration Metrics and Measurement: Commitment to measuring combination of

individual and societal outcomes Standards of Excellence: commitment to quality design, execution,

monitoring, and relationship stewardship Branding and Communications: Flexibility for exclusive corporate

branding Employee Engagement: Meaningful, appropriate employee

volunteerism

What makes corporate partnerships work? Experiences from global partnership with Nokia

• Shared goals and “value fit”

• Understanding and appreciation of core competencies and clearly defined roles and responsibilities

• Spirit of co-creation

• Emphasis on local relevance, with global systems to support – “glocal” NGO-corporate alliance

• Commitment to metrics and measuring impact

• Ability to refresh and renew the relationship

• Prove and Improve (taking tested programs to scale)

• Long term investments (6-8 years) allows for realistic progress for impact and sustaining programs

• Balancing social benefit with business benefit

Challenges • Mismatch between corporate schedule (quarterly)

and NGO (min of 3 years for sustained development)

• Changes are more frequent in business than NGO field

• Sometimes speak different language and different communication styles

• Competing priorities – societal benefit vs. business benefit

• When roles and responsibilities change