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Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

Bio

Founder + CEO Connective Impact aiding organizations in strategic goal development, partnership creation, coalition building and collective thinking in order to solve some of the most complex problems of our time. Extensive experience building strong, lasting partnerships with business leaders in sustainability.

Recent Answers

Procurement

How painful do you find tender and RFP compilation? In your opinion, what would make the process easier?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

You need to pick and choose appropriately. Some organizations make the mistake of applying to every tender and/or RFP that comes across their desk. What makes the process simpler is being very clear about your goals and objectives and finding alignment (even partially) within the RFP parameters. If you have a few clearly laid out goal statements, objective papers and know your metrics, then preparing an RFP is quite simple. I help many organizations with this aspect of fundraising (first by identifying what your internal needs are first, then looking for the fit externally) so let me know if I can be of help. Good luck!

Website Development

Is there an all-in-one customizable platform that lets entrepreneurs add contractors to a roster, then facilitates pairing with their customers?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

Hi there. I don't know of one but sounds like it would be super helpful if there was one. Curious to see what people include here...

Public relations

How can I create a media hero?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

Hi there.... I am not a media giant or PR person but I do know social impact and my guess if this guy has really great story to tell, you'd be able to find resonators with a large audience simply by cherry picking the right groups with whom to share his story. It's like any sales, really. Find the selling point and get the message out far and wide. Perhaps there are like-minded organizations that may want to hear him tell his story over a working lunch for their staff. Or an organization that is looking for a great conference or event speaker. There are many ways to turn his story into something heroic as long as the right ears are listening.

Advisory Boards

With our product being developed, we are looking for a good team of advisors - we need input, challenges and connections, how can I find them?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

There are likely a few ways to do this. Reaching out via your network for those individuals/organizations that can provide the input you need is an easy way and likely one you've already thought of. Another is to hire a connector, whose job it is to find these advisors for you. This person/organization could also determine which input is valid and worth considering versus what is fluff. Connections are also easier made when you have a broker of sorts finding them for you. I do a lot of that. Let me know if I can help!

LinkedIn

How can I best market to members of a LinkedIn Group to generate interest in a seminar specific to their business?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

I like the idea of asking questions to the group to help them identify potential challenges that are both relevant to the issue area of the group and could be addressed by your seminars. From there you may be able to facilitate a consensus building approach within the group towards effective problem solving addressed by your seminar. Perhaps making the problem solving being about getting everyone together in one room to address the shared challenge rather than it be a 'salesy' seminar pitch is best. That way there's ownership among the group to help develop specifics of the seminar content and you are positioned to be the convener. Happy to discuss further if interested.

Strategic Partnerships

How do I setup a strategic partnership agreement without having to do a rev/profit share deal?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

If you are really investing in a strategic partner (one that will provide mutual benefit in the end, either in terms of revenues, access to financing or other resources) then revenue sharing isn't absolutely necessary. In the partnerships I help to form, they are often around shared value (http://www.fsg.org/OurApproach/WhatisSharedValue.aspx) which means shared revenue isn't the absolute aim. What is the aim, however, is sharing information, knowledge, technical assistance, operational help, etc) and build a lasting framework for engagement together into the future that will benefit both parties. I am happy to help you negotiate these types of partnerships (it's what I do!) so feel free to get in touch.

Entrepreneurship

I am looking for 500 people to answer a survey about services for aspiring entrepreneurs. Where would be the best place to post my survey?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

Have you thought about social media (i.e. twitter?) I rely upon twitter for feedback on a regular basis. Another option is to create a targeted list of the 500 people/organizations you specifically want feedback from and send out via email, though as we all know the response rate on something like that is quite small. There are groups on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc as well that you could tap into.

Civic Engagement

I am working on a software product that would be marketed to municipalities and community groups such as a chamber of commerce. Is this a hard market?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

Not necessarily. What's key is to build relationships with the organizations that work most closely with the munis and local leaders. Often times the money comes from them (i.e NGOs, local companies, social ent orgs). In some cases software can be piloted at low or no cost with muni leaders and from there, government sees value and invests accordingly. Where will you be working? Of course every region and location is different but building relationships with organizations that work globally and know how to tap into the local groups is a great first step. Happy to chat further if I can be of help.

Business Advisory

Can a company pay an advisor via vested options if there is no plans to sell the company?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

I have been approached to advise companies with this arrangement. In the arrangement I was considering, the options simply turned to ownership but there was an end date by which the distribution had to be paid. Hope that helps!

Startups

How to get 5,000 regular clients?


Joanne Sonenshine

Partnership & collaboration facilitator

The first question I would ask back to you is how many clients you have currently. What is your retention rate? Your capture rate? From there you could develop a strategy to capture the next 5,000. If you haven't enlisted certain marketing channels or networks, you may be able to make a prediction about how many add'l clients that will bring you. Hope that helps!

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Areas of Expertise

FundraisingStrategyConnectorEconomicsSustainabilityStrategic PartnershipsCorporate Social ResponsibilityInternational DevelopmentCollaborationBuilding Partnerships