<br />Developing and managing strategic alliances with businesses involves a range of tasks, from the exploration of specific alliance options through planning alliance activities to periodic review of the entire alliance portfolio. These responsibilities are often guided by a small task group of board and staff members, usually led by the chief executive or an appointed executive staff member and a board member. <br /><br />These groups tend to include people experienced in resource development,project management, marketing,finance, public relations, and communications, as well as those with contacts in the business community. (Sometimes consultants are retained to provide planning or decision-making facilitation or expert advice on capacity building or alliance development.) This task group is responsible for regular communication about alliance development and for seeking governance and management attention whenever appropriate. <br /><br />Because of the many questions that can arise regarding relationships between nonprofits and businesses, nonprofit boards need to set parameters on ethical matters such as conflicts of interest, product endorsements, and acceptable types of business partners and practices.Additional policy areas may also be addressed. It is a governance responsibility to make sure your nonprofit has adequate guidelines for developing strategic alliances.Appendix D presents a summary of nonprofit policy areas related to alliances and a sample policy statement. <br /><br />At this point it is important to decide who should undertake the responsibilities for developing alliances with businesses, determine what policy guidelines are needed, and define next steps. <br /><br /><b> Summarize your nonprofit’s answers to the following questions to delegate responsibilities for guiding alliance development.</b>