It never fails. At some point in every collaborative conservation project that I’ve ever worked on, someone in the group says, “If only we had [insert celebrity name here] then our goals would be so easy to accomplish.” From Taylor Swift to Chuck Leavell, I’ve heard every name suggested as the silver bullet to solve all the environmental problems of the world. (Actually, one client did get Chuck Leavell to provide the intro music to their podcast.)
But what I know without a doubt is this:
You don’t need a celebrity endorsement for your collaboration to make a massive impact. So when I read that SZA had announced a partnership with TAZO Tea Company and American Forests, I saw an opportunity to illustrate that collaborations succeed when they get clear on the purpose of their work and what each partner is willing (and able) to provide.
In this article:
Why your cause doesn’t need a celebrity endorsement to succeed
(and what we can learn from SZA, TAZO Tea, and American Forests collaborating on the TAZO Tree Corps partnership)
SZA partners with TAZO Tea and American Forests to fight climate change and climate justice
(Image Source: https://www.tazo.com/us/en/treecorps.html)
The TAZO Tree Corps
The partnership between this nine-time Grammy nominee, for-profit corporation, and nonprofit organization is known as the TAZO Tree Corps. Part climate solution and part environmental justice mission, the goal is to put trees back in urban areas while providing green jobs to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities. These communities are 3x as likely to live in nature deprived areas. Trees in urban areas have a host of benefits that extend beyond the obvious. One piece of research that has always surprised me is that their presence is even linked to lower rates of domestic violence.
As I read through what these partners were up to my immediate reaction was, “How cool!” Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say (“they” want us to say) when people, brands, causes that we love work together to do good things?
SZA explains her role in the TAZO Tree Corps
That’s the challenge with collaboration.
From the outside looking in: it feels good, it sounds good, it looks good. We want people to feel the same about our work as they feel about the TAZO Tree Corps. But you and I know how much effort they take. They are driven by behind-the-scenes work that’s never seen, the hard conversations that don’t always feel resolved, and the time it takes to find solutions that get to the heart of the problem.
If you’re willing to take on this task, it’s important to understand that even the TAZO Tree Corps likely faced these challenges. It’s also important to understand that there are different ways to approach collaboration. They come in different forms. Being intentional about those approaches and forms is what will ensure your success, with or without SZA.
Why collaborative initiatives fail
It took years of facilitating collaborative efforts to realize that when my clients talked about “collaboration” they didn’t always know what they meant by it. The only thing that was clear was that they believed if they put like-minded people in the same room, something magical might happen.
I witnessed collaborations fall apart over-and-over again because the group didn’t have a clear vision for what they wanted to have happen. What began as excitement and possibility quickly dissolved into frustration and apathy. After hours, months, and sometimes even years, they were no further along than when they began. I began to realize that the crux of the problem was that there isn’t a single definition for collaboration. If I could tease the differences apart, I knew I would set my clients up for success without the experience of agony.
Redefining collaboration to maximize impact
Collaboration happens on a spectrum. On one end, the work that we do with others is built around the transactional exchange of resources to create impact. On the other end, the work is heavily steeped in building relationships to create impact.
Spectrum of Collaboration, Adapted from The Partnership Institute’s Maximizing the Impact of Partnerships for the SDGs (2018)
Although “transactional” doesn’t always have the most positive connotation in today’s world, this end of the collaboration spectrum is extremely important. It can produce fast and efficient results, though not always far-reaching. The “relational” forms of collaboration require a much more significant investment of time, resources, and partnership engagement. These kinds of collaborations are harder to create and sustain, though -- if successful -- they have the opportunity to address deeply rooted, systemic issues.
Not every collaborative initiative looks the same
Not every collaboration looks the same, nor should they. While we might be inspired by collaborations like TAZO Tree Corps and dream of how we might snag a celebrity like SZA to promote our mission, the critical ingredients to success are rooted in our ability to “right-size” our approach and the impact that we want to create. This requires our thoughtful and honest consideration about where our collaboration falls on the spectrum of collaboration.
Since the TAZO Tree Corps-SZA is a high-profile and current collaboration, I’ll use it to pull back the curtain on the five stages of collaboration. It will help us understand how collaboratives look at every stage, from communication to transformation. You’ll see the considerations to make at each stage, how they might progress over time, and how they are embedded within one another. And hopefully you’ll see that it isn’t a big name that makes a collaboration successful or worthwhile.
Please note, I am not affiliated with TAZO Tree Corps or any of its partners. I was not involved in the development of the partnership and do not know its innerworkings. These are my outside observations about how this collaboration could have looked at each stage of collaboration. They are based on my professional expertise as someone who helps facilitate the development of multi-stakeholder collaborations.
The five stages of collaboration through the lens of the TAZO Tree Corps
Stage 1: Communication
Partners with a common interest share information.
If the partnership between SZA, TAZO, and American Forests was operating solely as a communication effort, “TAZO Tree Crops” wouldn’t exist. It would take a simpler form, with each partner sharing information to advance the mission of the other. There wouldn’t be a need for a new initiative, because each partner would use each others’ communications channels to promote their existing initiatives. SZA, with the biggest voice and biggest platform, would be the megaphone for shared concerns. Her support would bring attention from new audiences to her partners.
Her role as ambassador would be the same as it is in the current initiative: to help make the connection between climate change, BIPOC communities, and tree conservation. That might look like elevating the issue on social media or, even better yet, giving an interview in Billboard magazine. Donations to American Forests might increase. TAZO’s brand reputation would grow. SZA might even gain a few new followers from outside her traditional demographic.
As the first and most transactional form of collaboration, the outcome would create more awareness than action. A mutual respect between the three partners would be enough to agree upon aligned messaging, but there wouldn’t be a heavy investment of time and resources. The effort would still be worthwhile as a first step.
Stage 2: Coordination
Partners ensure their individual activities or projects are complimentary.
My guess is that before the TAZO Tree Corps emerged, TAZO and American Forests sat down to examine where there was overlap and alignment in their individual goals. SZA probably wasn’t in the picture at this point.
As a nonprofit, American Forests has a socio-environmental mission that focuses on restoring forests, ensuring the presence of trees and green spaces in urban areas, and helping to shape policies that promote forests. Their 2030 goals are ambitious: 4 billion trees across 16 million acres of North America, 100 American cities where neighborhoods have equitable access to the benefits that trees provide, and 100,000 people – particularly those from marginalized communities – with jobs in forestry.
TAZO is owned by Unilever. Unilever has a long-standing commitment to sustainability initiatives. But the sustainability focus of TAZO doesn’t quite directly connect to American Forests’ mission. TAZO focuses more on working with farmers and suppliers to improve social and environmental standards in their supply chain. Obviously there could be something that I don’t know, but on the surface I don’t see a direct link between TAZO and trees.
(If you’re interested in SZA, you might also be interested in the political monologue that Burna Boy begins in his song “Another Story” about the history of Unilever in Nigeria’s independence. Turns out, the early days of Unilever weren’t quite as socially conscious as you might think. If you decide to follow these links and dig into the story I am alluding to, you’ll see how quickly these issues get complicated. It’s why we need one another in open dialogue and collaboration to resolve them. We have to understand the complexities so that we can see the issues clearly from all sides. It’s the only way we can untangle them and include justice in what we mean by sustainability.)
Coordination requires that a common goal already exists among partners. The idea is that partners look to the activities or projects that they already have in place to determine where there is overlap. Those points of intersection offer opportunities to share resources and streamline processes.
A simple example is two organizations focused on beach preservation, one in northern California and one in southern California. They share the same goal, but are working in different geographic locations. Instead of hosting two different beach clean-up days, they might partner with one another and other beach preservation organizations to host a statewide event.
Coordination creates impact when we align with other organizations that are doing work that is similar or adjacent to our own. We build an awareness of who they are and what they do so that we can identify opportunities to combine our efforts. This stage is still transactional and is limited in its scope of impact, but it can create efficiency of effort and create a spark of excitement about the shared work.
I have a hunch that the conversation about coordination between American Forests and TAZO never even occurred, much less with the inclusion of SZA. Each partner was doing work that was significantly different from one another. In order for their partnership to work, something new had to be created. The TAZO Tree Corps feels like a very intentionally defined project that partners were willing to invest in so that they could collectively create a longer-term, sustained impact.
Stage 3: Leveraging
One partner contributes to the work of another or partners exchange resources
Leveraging resources is the stage at which we start to transition from one-way, transactional collaboration to more relationally-based, generative forms of collaboration.
There is still a dynamic of “I have something of value that you don’t have. Let me give it to you to improve an outcome you’re working toward.” That “something” could be money, knowledge, skills or resources. While there might be a shared vision for change, these types of partnerships often involve lifting up the mission of one partner and helping them to implement.
TAZO could have given money to any of American Forests projects. SZA could have rallied for their goal to create “tree equity” in 100 American cities. And by all three stating their alliance, American Forests would have provided TAZO and SZA with social proof of their commitment to climate change and environmental justice.
This is a common form of collaboration. We often see this when a for-profit organization supports the mission of a non-profit. Or when a government invests in community efforts. This is different from coordination because one or more partners has to invest in something that they haven’t yet been involved in. There is a necessary period of time when the relationship between the supporter (i.e. the one with the resource) and the implementing partners needs to be built. Both need to trust each other, see value in what each other is offering, and take the time to refine the shared goal.
If you’re wanting to move toward relational forms of collaboration, this is easier than the next two stages. You can spot this stage of collaboration because nothing new is created, but something already in existence is furthered. This doesn’t make it wrong or non-impactful, it just makes it easier.
Stage 4: Integration
Partners combine resources to develop new approaches that deliver value
When I first started facilitating the growth of collaborative partnerships 20 years ago, there weren’t many collaborations that wanted to tackle “integration.” As the pace and scale of our environmental issues accelerate, that is changing. SZA, TAZO, and American Forests provide us with an example of what it means to push the boundaries beyond “easy.” If I were to select a stage of collaboration where the TAZO Tree Corps fits, it would be integration.
This is what makes their collaboration truly integrative:
Partnerships that integrate or combine resources to create impact have four key characteristics
The challenge in front of them was easily defined: Integrative collaborations begin by defining a problem that each partner wants to solve and has the ability to offer complementary resources to solve. It is different from the next stage of collaboration in that the challenge can be easily defined. The value of collaboration is that it brings in diverse perspectives. And the result of those diverse perspectives is the ability to see our challenges – as well as our goals – more holistically. SZA, TAZO, and American Forests likely all saw the challenge differently, had unique goals they wanted to achieve, and unique motivations for wanting to be involved. It was through those differences that the challenge became clear: BIPOC communities need the benefits of urban forests.
Something new was created: Different from the stage of leveraging, integrative collaborations create something new. The TAZO Tree Corps did not exist before these partners came together. It was a solution that had to be co-generated. In my experience facilitating the growth of partnerships like these, it requires a lot of dialogue to get to a solution that is meaningful to everyone. Even in those rare instances where one partner comes into the process with a specific idea that they want to implement, there is an investment of time that is needed before everyone can see themselves and their contributions to a powerful outcome.
Successful outcomes will deliver multiple types of value: One of the biggest differences between collaborations that “leverage” and those that “integrate” is the type of value that they create. Leveraging channels resources to one or more partners' organizational missions. But the impact of the TAZO Tree Corps will extend far beyond SZA’s, TAZO’s, or American Forests missions. While the creation of something new helps each of their success, their priority is to make society better. And these values are created through trust, communication, and transparency that can only be built through a rich relationship between partners.
Relationship is critical to success: Collaborations that “integrate” need support from a diverse range of partners. And the TAZO Tree Corps recognizes that. Though SZA, TAZO, and American Forests are the partners that capture the headlines, it’s the smaller and grassroots organizations that are making things happen. These are the organizations that will make the on-the-ground impact in the communities.
The Davey Tree Expert Company will provide the career pathways for the TAZO Tree Corps fellows. Detroit, Richmond, Minneapolis, the Bronx, and the San Francisco Bay Area are all engaged, partnering with local nonprofits to help bring the program to life. The relationships between all of these partners needs to be strong. They must depend on one another and that requires trust. It is through that trust that they operate integrally (and powerfully).
Stage 5: Transformation
Partners focus on creating new outcomes that fundamentally transform the way a system works
So what would a collaboration look like if it was committed to transformation?
While the TAZO Tree Corps isn’t that partnership, it’s connected to one that is:
The World Economic Forum is spearheading a project to conserve, restore, and grow 1 trillion trees by 2030. To do that requires collaboration at a global scale, with businesses taking the lead to grow multi-stakeholder partnerships that lead to “ecopreneurship.”
Their vision is to weave together initiatives like the TAZO Tree Corps: connecting them, mobilizing them, empowering them to create solutions. The Trillion Trees Movement has created a platform, a space, and forum for transformative change. Instead of individual collaborations happening siloed off from one another, they’re asking them to see themselves as part of something different.
Guided by a diverse advisory board of influential voices in global conservation and with regional hubs in some of the most biodiverse and threatened places in the world, this is next level collaboration. It’s mind boggling to consider all of the connections and interconnections and relationships and working through tough issues that a collaboration at this scale has to work through, together.
And because I am a curious research nerd, I dug a little deeper into American Forests work to see that -- indeed -- they established the U.S. Chapter of the Trillion Trees Movement. Their work has led to businesses, government, and nonprofits committing to plant or prevent the loss of (as of April 2021) 49.3 billion trees. TAZO Tree Corps is one part of that contribution.
And that is how you get to transformative collaboration.
Collaborations can nest together to create ripples of impact. When you’re clear on your purpose, the “right size” of your collaboration, and are intentional about how your vision and goals connect to the web of work we are all doing, you’ll be able to scale in ways you’ve never imagined.
NOT EVERY COLLABORATION NEEDS TO CHANGE THE WORLD
or needs a celebrity endorsement to create impact
Often our desire to want to change the world makes us want to go as big as we can. That’s commendable. If you’re up to the task, do it. Go for it. The scale of issues that we are living in demands that kind of boldness. But, if there is a lesson that we can take from the TAZO Tree Corps, they didn’t have to take on transformative collaboration to contribute to systemic change. The TAZO Tree Corps contributes to something much bigger because it is connected to American Forests’ leadership in the Trillion Trees Movement.
I’ll say again: not every collaboration can or should set a vision that is transformative. And not every collaboration needs star power like SZA to be impactful or important. When you understand that all points along the collaboration spectrum have value, collaboration becomes much easier. It’s okay to communicate and coordinate. You will be impactful because you now understand the powerful outcomes those kinds of collaborations can make. You’ll focus your energy on the right thing.
In the end, and the point that I always return to in my work, everything intersects. We all matter. Even SZA is just one part of a whole. The sooner we see ourselves as having an important role to play, rely on one another’s unique perspectives and gifts, and challenge ourselves to work through our differences, the sooner we solve the environmental crisis we find ourselves in.
