Hello to you! Welcome to this week's edition of CDP Connect! This week, we're talking about team building. We often think of team building for work teams, but we seldom use team-building language when talking about community partnerships. This week, we'll look at the value of community partners and consider how building a strong community team maximizes impact.

✨Funder Highlight✨

This *NEW* section of CDP Connect highlights a funder each week that supports the theme of the week. To research additional funders, visit https://grantstation.com

Walmart is in nearly every neighborhood, serving, championing, and contributing to their communities. One of the many ways they support local nonprofits is helping to support team-building, community connections, and partnership links. Walmart provides place-based support through its Spark Good Local Grants program. Nonprofits interested in applying for a Spark Good Local Grant must have a Spark Good account on Walmart.com/nonprofits and be verified by Walmart’s third-party verification partner, Deed. To get started, review the program guidelines, then set up an account at walmart.com/nonprofits. 

For more information, visit walmart.com/nonprofits. 

Partnerships: The Key to Community Impact

Many types of organizations work in a community to make a difference. Businesses, local government, educational institutions, nonprofits, and social enterprises are striving to provide, meet needs, and create a community where people can thrive. But no single stakeholder can create a flourishing community alone. We need each other. I need you to fulfill your mission, and you need me to fulfill mine. Often, organizations take a guarded, turf-protecting posture and see other community organizations as competition rather than allies. To have a flourishing community, a community where everyone can thrive, we need to move past a posture of competition to one of partnership.

Here's how to start:

✔️ Identify who shares your place and space. Look for nonprofits, businesses, organizations, and institutions that share your space and place. This is not the time to be exclusive, but to include all the different stakeholders sharing your geography and serving and practicing in the same space as you.

✔️ Next, identify partner prospects. Identify stakeholders with common interests, shared missions, and complementary services or practices. These partners could be any type of organization -- businesses, local government, nonprofits, educational institutions, or social enterprises. Look for common threads to your work when identifying prospects.

✔️Find your tribe. Consider organizations that align with your values, mission, priorities, or practice. Consider who is in your corner and which organizations interface with your work. Build community, connection, and partnership identity around your alignment.

✔️Outline practical ways of exercising authentic partnership. Partners in name only aren't helpful. Find ways to truly work together, support each other, and build a flourishing community. Build a network; join or create a collaborative or coalition. Write it down. Do it.

✔️Do team building. Teams develop through shared experiences that build trust. Explore real ways to connect and work together to build relationships. Look for mutual opportunities to impact the community and strengthen each other.

Just as friendships don't happen by accident, partnerships don't either. It takes effort, intentionality, and consistency. What's the next step in building partnerships for you? Need help? Reach out. We are here to help.

Strong partnerships build strong communities.

Want to build partnerships in the community? Share a meal.

Community Team-Building

Strong communities don’t happen by accident. They are built through relationships, trust, communication, shared purpose, and a willingness among community stakeholders to work together. Team building can help organizations, agencies, businesses, residents, and other partners move beyond working alongside one another to working as a team.

Community team building can take many forms. Here are some of our favorites:

• Learn a new skill together. Shared learning builds bonds and creates unique experiences. Learn how to speak conversationally in another language. Learn how to decorate a cake or bake bread. Learn how to compost or draw. Identify something no one knows how to do and find a time to learn together.
• Problem-solve together. Do an escape room or solve a mystery together. Gather together to brainstorm about a real challenge facing the community. Find ways to work together toward common solutions.
• Volunteer together. Serve together at a food pantry, community meal center, or clothing closet. Pack boxes for a back-to-school bash, paint a fence, or pull weeds at a nonprofit.
• Attend an event together. Go to a ballgame, fundraiser, or state-of-the-city event. A shared experience creates social ties, builds trust, and creates shared history.
• Develop, lead or participate in a community leadership circle. Schedule a regular time to meet, talk, and build relationships, but give the gathering a purpose. Set a goal and work to achieve it.

Effective community team building requires intention and ingenuity. Find your tribe. Pick your path. Get started.

For the full calendar of upcoming events visit here. For CDP-sponsored events, there is no cost to attend, but registration is required. Register today!

Your CDP membership includes a discounted rate to GrantStation. You can join GrantStation for less than 40¢/Day

Explore more of what CDP offers....

Follow us on social media!