Newsletter: Who Should You Really Call About Partnerships? ☎️ ; Big Wins Come From Flywheels, Not Moments 🔄 ; Is the Next Competitive Edge Decency? 🤍
Most partnership conversations don’t fail because the idea is bad.
They fail because you called the wrong person. Awkward, right?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say, “We reached out to the person who handles partnerships and never heard back.” Or worse—“The company isn’t interested.”
But here’s a better question:
Who at the company told you that?
My friend Courtney Davidson at Breakthrough T1D recently commented that her partnership team uses what they call “decision maker personas.” When they hear a company isn’t interested, they ask: Does that person actually represent the company’s cause partnership strategy?
That’s a wicked powerful filter!
Because most companies don’t wake up thinking, How can I sponsor something today? They wake up thinking about sales targets, brand positioning, customer acquisition, channel growth, and ROI.
“Sponsor” isn’t the job. Results are.
That’s why the person you need often doesn’t have sponsorship anywhere in their title. And the right title often depends on your offering.
On Thursday, February 26, at 1pm ET, I’m going live on LinkedIn with the legendary Larry Weil—The Sponsorship Guy—to dig into one deceptively simple question:
When reaching out about a partnership, who should you actually call?
👉🏻 Click "Attend" on the event page to get a reminder
We’ll cover:
• The titles that most often matter
• The ones that sound right—but usually aren’t
• How internal structure matters more than org charts
• And how to align your outreach with the way companies actually think
The conversation will run 20–25 minutes. That’s it.
Between now and then, I’d love your input.
👉 What job title has surprised you?
👉 Have you ever been blocked by the wrong decision-maker?
👉 What role actually controls partnership budgets in your experience?
Reply to this email or comment on LinkedIn—we’ll bring your insights into the conversation.
Because before you refine your pitch, you need proof you’re talking to the right person.
👉🏻 Click "Attend" on the event page to get a reminder
✍️ Partnership Notes
A partnership insight that matters.
🔄 Big partnerships wins aren’t moments—they’re flywheels.
Domino’s recent $19 million raise for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital isn’t the result of a flashy stunt or one viral push. It’s the result of repetition. Year after year, the partnership is embedded into store culture, employee engagement, and customer interactions. Each campaign builds credibility. Credibility fuels participation. Participation drives results. Results become proof—and proof makes the next year easier. That’s not a campaign. That’s a flywheel. The lesson for partnership pros: when proof compounds, momentum stops depending on persuasion.
🤑 Marketing Your Cause
One move you should steal.
📢 When you say it, it’s marketing. When someone else says it, it’s credibility.
Two smart takes—one from the Content Marketing Institute, the other from Adriana Tica—make the same point: trust grows when validation comes from outside your organization. Whether it’s external experts, independent contributors, or credible voices amplifying your message, borrowed authority travels farther than self-promotion. For partnership pros, this matters more than ever. Case studies, testimonials, and social proof don’t just work because they show results—they work because they signal third-party validation. And here’s the subtle advantage: when someone independent writes and structures that proof, it reads less like marketing and more like proof.
😎 Cool Jobs in Cause
Find your next adventure.
🤝 Lead Director, Corporate Partnerships, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Multiple Locations
🤝 Development Operations Manager, Keep America Beautiful, Remote
🤝 Corporate Engagement Manager, America's Warrior Partnership, Remote
🧠🍌 Brain Food
One thing that's feeding my thinking.
🛡️ The next competitive moat won’t be volume—it will be decency.
This MediaPost article suggests that decency—long treated as soft and optional—may be the next hard advantage. After years of chasing reach and rewarding sensationalism, the pendulum may be swinging back toward reliability, restraint, and fact-based value. In saturated markets, volume fades fast, but credibility compounds. For partnership pros, that’s not a feel-good insight—it’s a strategic one. Proof isn’t a supporting asset anymore; it’s the moat. In an era where everyone can publish, only those who can demonstrate real, defensible value will endure.
