Lauren Townsend, Co-Founder of Millie's Homemade Ice Cream
At Millie’s Homemade Ice Cream, we like to keep it real. Real relationships, real ingredients. Building partnerships is core to our mission to #spreadLove in our community through the simple joy of scratch-made ice cream. Whether we’re supporting a local purveyor, local non-profit, or a local brand collaboration, we’ve always strived to be an asset in our hometown (shoutout: Pittsburgh makes this really easy!).
So, what makes a partnership successful? We have been fortunate to collaborate with some really *sweet* organizations over the last five years, and when I really think about the common themes of those partnerships, it comes down to 4 ingredients: equal parts intention, equitable value creation, community benefit, and a pinch of FUN (but, of course!).
Ingredients
- ½ cup of Intention. Does the partnership align with our mission, vision, and/or values as a company?
- 8 tablespoons of Equitable Value Creation. Do all stakeholders believe the partnership is a win-win scenario?
- 118 ml of Community Benefit. Is this partnership positive for the community, even in a small way?
- A pinch of Fun. Is it delicious? Enjoyable? Amusing? Most importantly, does it make you smile?
Intention
Brand fit is key when it comes to partnerships, so it is important to approach collaborations with intention and purpose. When we work with other brands, we look for the same attributes that we believe differentiate our company. Is there integrity in their product? Their sourcing? Are they a good employer? A good corporate citizen? If you plan to collaborate with non-profits, it can be helpful to establish a charitable framework for your company. We receive requests to collaborate with a myriad of non-profits around town and while we’d love to do something with each one, we’ve had to narrow our active support, in terms of time and money, to those organizations that are closest to our charitable pillars of youth development, economic empowerment for women & minorities, and eliminating hunger.
Equitable Value Creation
A successful partnership always results in a “win-win” outcome for both parties but what does that actually look like? The truth is, it can take many forms and there is really no “one-size-fits-all” approach here. Just look at a few of our recent partnerships:
- Smiley Cookie flavor collaboration with Eat ‘n’ Park at Kennywood. Talk about a win-win-win! Millie’s, the youngest & newest company of the bunch, gets much needed brand exposure; Eat ‘n’ Park reaches a younger demographic thanks to Millie’s, and Kennywood gets favorable press for collaborating with not one, but two local brands.
- Sweet Reads summer reading program with Allegheny County Library Association. Also a win-win, but in a different way -- our community libraries get to further advance their youth literacy goals and Millie’s builds customer loyalty. There is no short-term economic gain for Millie’s here (we’re giving away ice cream) but there is a very real benefit in building life-long loyal customers.
Community Benefit
Community benefit is relatively straightforward when we’re collaborating with non-profit organizations, but how do you measure it when working with other for-profit brands? For Millie’s, it comes down to the triple bottom line, often referred to as profit, people, and planet. Listen, we must make money. We don’t do anyone any good if we go out of business. But here’s where the notion of linked prosperity comes into play: do the economic benefits of the partnership help us sustain good paying jobs? Can we keep more money in the local economy by purchasing from a local brand, artist, maker, farmer, artisan, etc.? If the partnership is positive for the community, even in a small way, then count us in.
Fun
Ah, yes. Fun. Is this partnership capital F-U-N, fun??? For the stakeholders? For our employees? For our customers? This is subjective, of course, but we know it when we see it. We’re in the ice cream business after all. The serotonin-releasing-can’t-help-but-feel-good-memory-making ice cream business so all collaborations MUST. BE. FUN. Fun can be delicious, colorful, imaginative, nostalgic, silly, and even irreverent. At the end of the day, we really just want to make you smile!
Does this sound *sweet* to you? Maybe we can partner with your organization on campus this Fall. The Millie’s kiosk, located in the university bookstore, plans to reopen in late August 2021.