SCORE launched the FY24 Local Alliance Partnership Survey to the field leadership on April 8, 2024, with a due date for all surveys to be completed by April 30. Below please find answers to some frequently asked questions regarding the survey.
Q: What is an Alliance Partner?
A: Alliance partnerships are non-monetary relationships with like-minded organizations that help small business owners, and/or share resources in support of SCORE or its mission. No dollars are exchanged, which distinguishes these partnerships from paid sponsorships. Examples of Alliance Partnerships include relationships with the local Chamber of Commerce, other SBA partners, universities, libraries, etc.
Q: What is the purpose of this survey?
A: SCORE is seeking to identify local alliance partner relationships to better understand existing networks and assist the field in creating stronger local relationships in support of SCORE. It is not an effort to gather information on every single alliance partnership but to gain a better, high-level understanding of SCORE’s alliance partner relationships throughout the field, specifically looking at some of the more common stakeholder groups and client communities.
Q: Who should fill out the survey?
A: We are asking all chapter chairs/co-chairs to fill out the survey or assign it to the appropriate volunteer(s) for your chapter. For chapters where alliance partnerships are coordinated at the district, state or regional level, the volunteer(s) with the best knowledge of these partnerships should fill out the survey (either in addition to or instead of the chapter chair/co-chair) to provide the most complete picture of existing field relationships for the questions asked.
Q: How much time will this survey take?
A: The survey should take most chapters less than 30 minutes to complete, less for those with fewer alliance partners. Although seeing "52 sections" may seen daunting, it is mostly a series of boxes to check. The many sections is because the survey is set up in Google Forms, which limits how we could group the questions and answers.
Q: Can I see all of the questions before I begin?
A: Yes. You can view all of the questions in this Google Doc if it is helpful to you before beginning the survey or assigning it to others in your chapter.
Q: What if our chapter has more than 1 relationship for each category?
A: Answers to survey questions should represent the relationships at the LOCAL chapter level where possible, specifically looking at some of the more common stakeholder groups and client communities.
Where there is a relationship at the local level with more than one organization for each category, please respond for the one with the most significant relationship LOCALLY for that category. For each question answered YES, additional questions below will be prompted. If there are alliance partnerships at the local level that do not fit into the existing categories, there is space at the end of the survey for “other” to add that information.
Q: What if I don’t have contact information for every Alliance Partner?
A: You do not need contact information for this survey. We only ask whether a local relationship exists, the name of the organization and a few questions about the value or impact of the relationship in the form of check boxes.
Q: Is this survey part of a larger effort to track or create a database of community relationships in the field?
A: There have been requests from the field to add alliance partners to Engage to help track and manage those relationships over time. This survey is not part of that request and is not an effort to create a database of every alliance partnership.
Q: How will filling out the survey benefit me as a field leader?
A: This survey is a first step towards gaining a better, high-level understanding of SCORE’s alliance partner relationships throughout the field, specifically looking at some of the more common stakeholder groups and client communities.
As a field leader, you will benefit by:
- learning more about alliance partnerships in your district, state or region and potential opportunities for you to leverage
- having a resource to share knowledge and best practices for alliance partnership relationship building
- gaining a better understanding of SCORE’s national alliance partner footprint
Q: What if I can’t possibly list every alliance partnership in the space provided?
A: The survey is not an effort to create a database of every alliance partnership and we are not collecting contact information about those partners in this survey. It is an important effort to understand from a big picture perspective what our alliance partnership network looks like and where there are opportunities to grow those relationships, or identify best practices, or see where there are overlapping or neighboring communities where partnerships might be expanded, etc.
Q: How will you know if the information provided is from the chapter, district, region or state?
A: Right at the beginning of the survey, each person filling it out is asked to identify if they are filling it out representing the chapter (choose chapter #) or if they are filling it out to provide information on partnerships that are at the district, state or regional level (choose “other” under the chapter # drop down). This will also allow us to sort the responses by chapter, district, region and state to provide useful insights at those field levels about alliance partnerships.
Q: When will we see the results of this survey?
A: The survey closes on April 30. We plan to share an update with the field in June.
If you still have questions, please email lori.barnes@score.org.
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