There is a growing recognition that no single sector can address the scale of sustainability challenge the world faces, making the value of cross-sector collaboration inevitable. On this premise, this thesis aimed to find out if there are companies and businesses in Nigeria with whom Igbo Women Forum could form partnership and to explore what the organization could do in order to be fit for such collaboration. By using the case study method of qualitative research and through the SWOT Analysis of Igbo Women’s Forum, the researcher had been able to identify three companies with whom Igbo Women Forum could partner with, and their responses had provided a general overview into what Businesses would expect from a potential NGO partner. Furthermore, the study recommended practical suggestions on how Igbo Women Forum and other NGOs can be fit for business partnership and overcome tensions that invariably lie beneath the surface of successful collaborations.
The study highlighted the key drivers bringing NGOs and Businesses together and how this relationship can provide companies with new challenges, fresh ideas, added credibility and better reach into communities, customers and government. Finally the study also revealed the various forms which partnership can take and the values which successful collaboration can bring.
There e case companies we re interviewed in the study, and they related how they had all experienced significant
economic value creation as a result of their collaborations with non-profit organizations. And how the skills, resources and capacities of these non-profits had enhanced their competitiveness and increase their market share.
The basis for these partnerships were critically examined and thoroughly analyzed in the light of how Igbo women forum can enter and benefit from similar kind of successful collaborations.
This thesis had revealed that the need for socio-economic development and the changing societal interests, environmental pressures and community demands are the key factors driving NGO and business partnerships. And the study also showed that a cross-sector partnership is sustained when it is built on trust, transparency, openness and honesty.
