Enhancing the Societal Impact of the Olympics: An Interorganizational Partnership Approach

Abstract

To enhance their organization’s impact on society, nonprofit leaders need to consider using a combination of different ways to effectively generate more support for both their organization’s operations and mission. The aim of this paper is to contribute to that search for potentially viable sources of additional nonprofit organizational support in two ways. First, it provides an in-depth case study on how the leaders of the Olympic Movement have been able to enhance their organization’s societal impact by successfully building an interorganizational partnership with a number of global for-profit firms. Second, how the Olympics’ experience might be helpful to other nonprofits in evaluating the potential value of using a similar or modified version of this approach as part of their own organizational development efforts. Management policy and practice implications are discussed.