Follow the Money Patterns

Patterns / 3. Working Within the System

Pattern 3.11

Second Sponsor

Have more than one sponsor, and get their commitments written into plans that will outlive any one of them.

Second Sponsor
Second Sponsor

In This Context

Patrons and sponsors move on, and their initiatives often die with them. A change that depends on one person’s backing is only as durable as that person’s tenure in the role, and a saving or commitment that exists only in a slide deck owned by someone who has left is one that nobody will defend. When the next budget holder asks what happened, nobody can explain it.

You can see this pattern is needed when everyone describes your initiative as “her project” or “his project,” and the plan for it is in one person’s head or one person’s slides.

  • Sponsors change roles, are promoted, or leave.
  • New leaders reopen decisions their predecessors made.
  • Informal commitments don’t survive a change of owner.

Therefore

Spread the sponsorship, and write the commitments down where they will be found.

  • Recruit sponsors from more than one part of the organization (a coalition helps here).
  • Get the commitment, its savings, and its baseline into plans and budgets, not just presentations.

Consequently

  • The initiative survives the departure of any one sponsor.
  • Written commitments can be explained to the next budget holder.

Seen In

Chapter 15, “Other Ways to Find Room” (“Sponsors leave”); Chapter 16, “Make the Numbers Survive Being Checked” (write the commitment into a plan that will outlive its sponsor).