Partnership guidelines govern the process of accepting or rejecting a partnership proposal.
Indeed, the most frequent quid pro quo for partnerships will essentially be the communication and image association made by the partner. Clearly, Surfrider will not accept to associate its image with just any company.
So when a partnership proposal is received by our dedicated teams, there are 3 possible scenarios:
This may be due to a mismatch with Surfrider's values on the grounds of :
... which would represent a risk for the association.
For your information, entire sectors (fossil fuel industries, arms, pornography, etc.) or companies defined by name (those producing the most plastic (cf. attached document) are banned from Surfrider's scope; we regularly use the term "blacklist ”.
Beyond these 2 ultimately simple scenarios, the intermediate scenario is as follows:
In this last scenario, a dedicated meeting is convened by the partnership team. It will bring together salaried representatives from Surfrider's various divisions, including the communications team, the lobby team, the mobilization team and management. A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis is then carried out to determine whether the partnership can be concluded, and if so, under what conditions.
To take the partnership a step further, we offer company awareness-raising activities, in conjunction with the ACT! team, to raise awareness among the organization's employees.
It is also possible for a company to take the partnership a step further and ask Surfrider for “critical friend” support. This is a rarer, more in-depth approach designed to challenge the company's industrial practices. This support is provided in conjunction with Surfrider's corporate advocacy team.
With all these parameters and options to bear in mind, the message to you as local group volunteers is this: as soon as a company contacts you, your reflex should be to refer them to head office - in this case, your MOB contact!