Partnership Methodology

If you are interested in partnership, especially if this regards help with your web presence, please be familiar with our 'Webdesign Service Statement' before contacting us. The following files will be of specific interest:

• Webdesign Service Statement - Memorandum Of Agreement *(coming soon)
• Needs Assessment Survey
• Website Care and Feeding

At Elfenworks, our preferred partners are pathfinders with potential for transformative growth and change-making. These partners can be working to raise awareness, to educate, to research and disseminate knowledge (e.g., about fiduciary capitalism, socially-responsible business, and best practices in intervention); those who empower and uplift the weak, poor, marginalized and written-off. Here is our logic: potential partners are busy with their own missions and don't have the resources or bandwidth to take their work to the next level alone, but they can be transformed and empowered with partnership, tools and an exchange of knowledge. Our partners seek us out and value their partnership with us because we are:

• Innovative - We were formed with a Silicon Valley mindset and skillset. We're entrepreneurial, innovative, creative, and forward thinking. .
• Responsive - We aren't set in stone about how best to empower our partners; rather than seeking to impose our own vision we listen and collaborate, creating new solutions together. We work hard, we work smart, and we work together!
• Multi-faceted - Our creative team of technology advocates, social entrepreneurs and advisors has deep and far-ranging expertise in multimedia outreach, computers and technology, music, film, management, the law, finance, education, and social justice matters.
• Harmonious - We share the values of our partners, we strive for open and truthful communication, and we don't covet credit for successes.
• Discerning - We choose partners carefully, just as one might choose between various boulders which could be dislodged with a crowbar. We don't roll them uphill, but rather choose those poised to roll downhill and gather momentum. And we recognize that our skill set is unique, as is the help we have to offer, and not every potential partner would benefit from it, so we also ask ourselves whether our involvement would be in a potential partner's best interest. Finally, we maintain a healthy skepticism and seek to understand actual results through measurement and feedback.
• Open - we share our skills and knowledge and our experience (what works and doesn't) in order to empower our harmony partners.
• Well Regarded - Potential partners recognize our past performance in maintaining an open and honest dialogue and our skills in systems analysis, solution finding, obstacle removing, bridge building and willingness to consider novel solutions / unpopular topics.

To maximize impact, our team of social entrepreneurs identifies key needs and concentrates on a few key projects at a time within an area of interest (currently domestic poverty, and reinvesting in education and innovativeness as a long-term strategic solution). We will bring this agenda to the forefront of the national debate by working in harmony partnerships with the visionary leaders a who are unwilling to accept the status quo. Usually, our partners will fall into one of five categories.

• education
• inequality/social justice
• health care (includes mental health)
• sustenance (food, shelter, a job)
• non-violence and freedom from fear

Adam Smith's 'invisible hand ¹' has let too many slip through its fingers, so attention to these five areas can serve as a symbolic reminder that we can all extend our hands to lend support and succor to those living in poverty. After all, it is in our enlightened self-interest to foster an abundant future landscape in which our children will live. We feel this can be brought about by recognizing and investing once again in our areas of historical strength which we have long been neglecting. For this reason we also will partner with advocates for investment in science and technology education, research, and infrastructure:

• American Innovativeness Campaign - advocating for investment in our historic source of comparative advantage as our best hope for a bright future. We can choose a long-term view and invest in science and science education.

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