Partners Collaborating with Partners

In April 2011, The Patterson Foundation (TPF) began a collaborative relationship with NetHope. In October 2012, TPF began a similar relationship with Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP). We rely on NetHope for its international disaster expertise, and we partner with CDP for its domestic disaster expertise.

Early on, TPF decided not to create a staff of disaster experts but to rely on the wisdom of others.

NetHope was founded to bring information and communication technology mastery to disasters to get communications back up and running. CDP was created to educate donors — large and small — on how to create a more significant impact with their dollars after a disaster occurs.

On two occasions, TPF encouraged the leaders of NetHope and CDP to meet for no other reason than the belief in the power of connective tissue — creating relationships which may yield something in the future. We valued our partnership with each organization, and we saw a connection in the strengths of each. TPF thought both organizations might benefit from knowing each other even though they didn’t overlap in purpose or geographical focus.

Fast forward to 2018. Not only does TPF continue to support both NetHope and CDP, but CDP recently granted NetHope $300k to work in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as part of the recovery work related to Hurricane Maria. Ironically, NetHope had recently embarked on its Disaster Preparedness work in the Caribbean. The recovery work managed by CDP complements the preparedness work of NetHope.

So while each of our partners has its own mission, they have intersected on a collaborative effort to rebuild and to prepare the Caribbean islands, and TPF couldn’t be more pleased with how this partnership is leveraging donated dollars.