Greater NY Leadership
Since the earliest days of Greater NY, one of the most consistent pieces of feedback from participants was that the program’s flexibility created unique conditions for successful relationships. Partnerships valued that they chose their own focus; they said Greater NY’s confidentiality built trust and true thought partnership; and they felt the program gave them an autonomy and agency that enabled them to fully explore the dimensions of a cross-sector relationship beyond the traditional financial relationship of donor and recipient or the power relationship of Executive Director and Board member.
Partnership is Greater NY’s Core Innovation
The Greater NY partnership relationship is Greater NY’s core innovation and most consistent output. In successful partnerships we’ve seen this relationship develop beyond being a strong executive resource to becoming a touchstone for other relationships and cross-sector collaborations. As we came to understand this, Greater NY’s evaluation began to focus on understanding the contours of the relationship – so we could manage toward success in all Greater NY partnerships.
Understanding the dynamics of the Greater NY relationship involved deep listening to partners during their partnerships and after their partnerships. It involved looking for patterns, qualitative data tagging, hypothesis building and testing, and pivoting when our hypotheses fell apart. This work led to the identification of four discrete “practices” that occur with remarkable regularity as core activities of Greater NY partnership conversations.
We deemed these activities “practices” because they emerged in the course of working together and as a byproduct of working together. They were not characteristics each partner brought to the table, but ways of collaborating that were activated by being at the table together.
These practices are:
Engaging in Partnered Mindset
Forging a collaborative approach to problem solving
Embracing “Greater” social capital
Helping each other become more powerful actors for New York City
Building Leadership Relationships
Making time for trust-based relationships with leaders across sectors
Activating Network Agility
Flexing a shared understanding of what matters in different sectors
Nonprofit Partners
Corporate Partners
Not every partnership develops all four practices. Most develop at least two. They do not emerge sequentially. Each practice is measured by 4-5 indicators tied to questions asked in Greater NY’s final survey. Below are descriptions of how the practices manifest and how we support their development.
Partnered Mindset
Engaging in partnered mindset is an outcome of working together on goals. Participants describe using the Greater NY relationship as a mutually beneficial sounding board.
Nonprofit partners say: “I test out new ideas in Greater NY conversations to see how they land and if they make sense to someone who thinks like a lot of my Board members.”
Corporate partners say: “I suggest bolder and more creative ideas in Greater NY because my partner doesn’t have to do what I say. I’m not their boss or Board member. They can take or leave anything I suggest.”
Greater NY supports a partnered mindset by encouraging candor and openness. In discussion with partners, we suggest using the unique format of Greater NY to test out ideas with someone that is not a Board member, senior staff member, or competitor. Greater NY also frames and messages the Greater NY relationship as a partnership - a conversation between peers in parallel sectors. Not all partnerships strictly define the relationship as a partnership, some think of it as a mentor-mentee relationship. But we have found that a partnered mindset shows up in the many definitions of the relationship.
“Greater” Social Capital
Embracing “Greater” social capital is a practice that we have seen built slowly over the course of a Greater NY partnership and that partners perceive most strongly at the end of their time together.
For nonprofit leaders – Greater social capital often comes out of having talked with complete candor about their vision for their organization and mission and having had that vision affirmed. This goes beyond confidence building. Partners have described it as agency they do not experience when managing to Board, funders or staff and that it is energizing as they wear many hats and answer to many stakeholders.
For corporate partners – Greater social capital comes through coming to understand complex issues for New York City that they were previously aware of but had no visibility into and saw no clear role to play in addressing them. Being able to think with nonprofit leaders on the front lines, they say, makes them feel more committed to addressing these issues and more connected to a broader New York City.
Greater NY supports the development of Greater social capital by listening carefully from the first conversations we have with each partner to understand what they want to achieve through Greater NY. By keeping track of larger goals we can foster achievement of greater purpose.
Leadership Relationships
Building leadership relationships is the fundamental activity of Greater NY - forging unique relationships that offer new perspectives and new ways of thinking. Greater NY partners (corporate and nonprofit) identified the following conditions as the most critical to leadership relationships - trust, shared purpose, vulnerability, and fun.
Nonprofit partners report the Greater NY partnership gave them a sense of how to navigate relationships with a wide range of private sector actors.
Corporate partners report Greater NY partnership helped them better understand how to be useful in moving forward nonprofit priorities.
As we match new partnerships, the next step is to identify the particular issues and conditions where this happens as a way to understand the places where networked partners can have broader impact for New York City.
Greater NY supports the development of leadership relationships by leaning into the core conditions for success, identified as: we model and protect confidentiality to build trust, ensure partners set goals to establish shared purpose, and remind partners of the uniqueness of the relationship as a way to encourage taking risks and having fun.
Network Agility
Activating network agility is a practice that emerges most in partnerships that focus on the outward-facing aspects of leadership. Network agility often comes as both leaders better understand each other’s business priorities and what can be gained through broader connectivity.
Nonprofit participants say: “I developed a better understanding of my value proposition to the private sector that has been useful when I am in the room with people I wanted to connect to my organization’s mission.”
Corporate partners say: “as I began to understand the value of connectivity for my partner, I reached out to others to provide their insights and answer questions for my partner when my knowledge was insufficient. Because we had a strong relationship, I had confidence in making these connections.”
Greater NY supports activating network agility when we hear it developing in a partnership. When it is not expressly described, we encourage partners to attend Greater NY events – off-the-record conversations and roundtables – both because this is a good way to meet others in Greater NY, but also because the connectivity modeled in these meetings can often activate it in a partnership.