The global health care company Johnson & Johnson, the Brazilian social business Phomenta, and Mexican grassroots NGO PSYDEH partner together in a 2021 corporate social acceleration marathon initiative (Marathon) to solve one of PSYDEH’s organizational management challenges.
Why We Partner
Johnson & Johnson Mexico helps its employees to make a social impact by loaning them out as business consultants advising non-profits like PSYDEH. Phomenta offers companies its design thinking-oriented Marathon methodology deployed by its skilled trainers when producing multiple collaborations with civil society in Mexico and across Latin America.
PSYDEH’s sustainable growth in a generally hostile Mexican funding climate is based on our thinking outside the box, including about how we define a “resource” and from where it comes. As highlighted in this Spanish article about our resource-stream diversification strategy, one important source is corporate partnerships. These collaborations come in myriad forms. With Johnson & Johnson Mexico and Phomenta, we were selected as one of the 16 organizations participating in the Marathon 2021.
Where We Focus Our Efforts
Over the course of the seven-week Marathon, three PSYDEH leaders and seven Johnson & Johnson Mexico professionals worked together in a workshop series organized as a series of interrelated modules and facilitated by a Phomenta expert. This team met weekly via two-hour virtual work sessions with the goal of solving PSYDEH’s business challenge: how to attract and cement ongoing win-win partnerships with private companies based in Mexico, for our own organization, and for the network of Indigenous women-led cooperatives we will incubate in 2022-2024.
At Marathon end, Johnson & Johnson consultants delivered a nine-chapter “story selling” playbook that both PSYDEH and Indigenous leaders can use when forging partnerships with private companies in Mexico. See this article to learn more details about our partnership.
Why it is a Win-win Partnership
Johnson & Johnson wins in at least three ways. First, this initiative shows how the company is socially responsible. Second, their professionals are given the opportunity to learn about and from a high-performing Mexican non-profit. Third, they do so while collaborating with peers from across the company’s teams in Mexico (cross-fertilization) with the aim to strengthen their teamwork, client relations, and problem-solving skills.
For its part, Phomenta deepens its partnership with Mexican non-profits like PSYDEH, helping us to secure the knowledge and strategies we need to solve our own challenges while earning income from a corporate partner.
PSYDEH wins by building cachet as a unique Mexican grassroots nonprofit capable of facilitating a win-win partnership with a global outfit like Johnson & Johnson. We also inch ever closer to our goal of becoming a sustainable operation with progress on three different resource streams: (1) receiving valuable donated in-kind professional services, which (2) help us to secure more donations of said services or (3) monetary grants from private sector companies in Mexico, for ourselves and for our Indigenous women beneficiary-partners.
