The longer we’ve been in this business, the more we’ve noticed something about our best client relationships: they’re built on honest, open communication and regular check-ins. Even when nothing’s wrong, the strongest partnerships use that kind of conversation to keep improving and strengthening things, rather than waiting until something breaks.
That was what inspired our session at the 2026 Bridge Conference—“More Than a Vendor: Maximizing the Value of Your Agency Relationships.” Bert Salter, our Sr. Director of Client Development, and Karen Barr, Share Our Strength/No Kid Hungry’s Managing Director of Individual Giving ran through our complex, multiyear agency-client partner relationship. Basically, we used ourselves as a case study.
Many Years Together and Still Going Strong
- Leadership changes, more than once
- Team turnover, on both sides of the table
- Other partners coming and going
- An RFP for services we were and weren’t providing
- Shifts in our scope of work
- Real growth and evolution of the program itself
Any one of those changes is exactly the kind of thing that can quietly end a partnership. Plenty of agency relationships don’t survive a leadership change, a scope shift, or a competitive RFP. What got us through all of it wasn’t luck. It was having honest conversations along the way. The best partnerships are built on alignment, trust, and a willingness to keep asking each other hard questions—especially when things are going fine.
Three Places to Check the Pulse of Your Partnership
Asking the questions below are key to forming the strong foundation for a relationship check-in exercise.
1. Keeping Alignment and Building Understanding
Goal Setting and Prioritization: Have we really agreed on where we’re going and what we’re building? Not “did we sign off on a goals document,” but do you both actually believe in the destination?
Priorities and Focus: Once you’ve agreed on the destination, do you agree on how to get there? Resources are always finite, so the real test is whether you’re aligned on the tradeoffs to reach the goal.
2. Growing Together with Integration, Insight, and Communication
Integration & Collaboration: Are you all still on the same team? This is the one that erodes over time as people change, walls go up, and processes calcify, so it’s worth a genuine gut-check.
Insight & Improvement: How do you keep growing together? Data shouldn’t just be part of a quarterly report; it should be actively guiding what you do next.
Communication & Feedback: Can you talk about what’s not working? This is the big one. A partnership where nobody wants to bring up the uncomfortable stuff isn’t a peaceful partnership, it’s a stalled one.
3. Keeping Things Fresh with Creativity and Innovation
Testing New Ideas: Are you still pushing the envelope, or have you settled into a routine that feels safe because it’s familiar?
Inspiring Innovation: Asking if the relationship is stale or stable can be very telling. The difference between them is whether anyone’s still trying to make greater strides for improvement.
Does Your Agency Relationship Need Counseling?
We’ve been on the other side of every one of these questions, sometimes uncomfortably so. We’ve watched what happens when a partnership leans into the hard conversation, instead of avoiding it. It gets stronger. It gets more valuable. It lasts.
So whether you’re two years into a relationship or eight, the questions are the same. The only real red flag is not asking them.
If you’d like help, we put those questions (and more!) into a companion guide, “10 Questions Every Nonprofit Should Ask About Their Agency Partner.” If it sparks a conversation with your current partner, or you’d like to get our take, we’re here for the conversation!