The Power (and Pitfalls) of Partnerships

Everyone loves the idea of collaboration — but real partnership? That’s harder.

From mismatched visions to unclear roles, even the most well-intentioned alliances can go sideways fast. In this episode, Eric and Jonathan break down what makes partnerships work — and what to watch out for before saying yes.

➔ The five elements every partnership needs to succeed (straight from the Collective Impact framework).
 ➔ The one conversation to have before committing to collaborate.
 ➔ How to recognize when you’re serving the mission — and when you’re just serving the relationship.
 ➔ Why a shared measurement system matters more than you think.
 ➔ The quiet risk of over-partnering — and how to protect your team from burnout.

If you’ve ever asked yourself, Should we partner?, this episode will give you the clarity, language, and strategy to answer with confidence.

Don’t just partner for the sake of it. Partner for impact.

Episode Highlights:

• [00:00] Realistic measurement: Start small, build from there
• [00:54] Why collective impact matters—and when it works
• [02:36] Weekly partnerships: A look inside nonprofit realities
• [03:51] Ingredient #1 – Common Agenda: Avoiding false alignment
• [06:14] Ingredient #2 – Shared Measurement: Keep it simple and aligned
• [11:56] Leading vs. lagging indicators in collaborative efforts
• [11:56] Ingredient #3 – Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Define your role
• [14:57] Ingredient #4 – Continuous Communication: Keep the momentum
• [15:44] Ingredient #5 – Backbone Support: Ownership drives sustainability
• [19:31] Human friction: Ego, credit, and collaboration fatigue
• [20:23] When to pursue partnerships—and when not to
• [22:54] Self-awareness over scope creep: Do what you do best
• [26:35] Group project syndrome: Don’t say yes if it’s not a win-win
• [27:59] Should partnerships have an exit clause?

Notable Quotes:

• “You don’t need to go from, we measure nothing to, we have every possible measurement we would ever want... This is not going to happen.” - Eric Ressler [00:00]
• “I think about partnerships regularly—probably weekly—because every stakeholder conversation is a chance to deliver greater impact together.” - Jonathan Hicken [02:36]
• “Everyone does have a way they’ll measure success, whether or not they admit it. If that stays hidden, the partnership is headed for trouble.” - Eric Ressler [11:07]
• “With so many moving parts, there needs to be an organization that serves as the anchor point, holding everything together when staff or circumstances change.” - Jonathan Hicken [18:38]
• “These five steps are a powerful accountability test—if you can’t say hell yes to each one, you’re not ready to partner.” - Eric Ressler [26:05]

Resources:

• Article - “Collective Impact” by John Kania & Mark Kramer - Stanford Social Innovation Review
• Article - Turning Stats Into Stories: Supercharge Your Social Enterprise’s Proof of Impact
• Article -Defeat Mission Creep and Master Your Nonprofit's Messaging to Maximize Impact 
• Article - Are You Using Your Power or Giving it Away?
• Podcast - Are You Bold Enough To Lead The Conversation?

Transcript 

Eric Ressler [00:00]:

You don't need to go from, we measure nothing to, we have every possible measurement we would ever want, and it's perfectly scientifically accurate and stress tested. This is not going to

Jonathan Hicken [00:09]:

Happen. Oftentimes we'll be coming to the table with different sort of micro measurements and sometimes we have to back up and ask ourselves what's the umbrella level measurement that captures what we're both measuring here.

Eric Ressler [00:23]:

When people think about strategic communications or communications in general, they're thinking about outward communications, but so much of it is also inward within your own team, but especially between partners.

Jonathan Hicken [00:35]:

I also think that it takes a level of self-awareness to be honest with yourself about what you are uniquely positioned to do and what are you uniquely capable of doing and looking outside of your organization and being like, you know what, they're better at that part, and so we can help each other.

Jonathan Hicken [00:54]:

Some of our most impactful work happens when we are in partnership with other organizations who share the vision in some way, and so one of the most impactful articles or pieces of thought leadership that I've read that I consistently refer to in my work is about collective impact coming out of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. An article written more than 10 years ago now actually by John Kania and Mark Kramer, apologies if I'm mispronouncing those names. And it's all about “Collective Impact” and it's about what are the recipes for delivering collective impact. In other words, how can partnerships help you deliver more impact?

Eric Ressler [01:41]:

Perfect. I feel like I've seen this before. Maybe you've shown it to me, but yeah, I'm curious to hear how you use this in your daily work.

Jonathan Hicken [01:48]:

So what we're going to do is we're going to go through the five elements or the five ingredients that John and Mark propose in this article to have a successful collective impact effort. And then let's talk about the power of it. Let's talk about the pitfalls of partnerships and then ultimately, let's break down a little bit about when you should or shouldn't reach for those partnerships.

Eric Ressler [02:10]:

That sounds great. Yeah, I mean, I think about this a lot and I'm not exposed to this thinking all the time. In our work, a lot of times these partnerships are set up by the time organizations get to us or they're happening behind the scenes, so to speak. We've been a little bit more involved in some of this as of late, and yeah, I'm really curious to hear when's the right time to make this move and when should you be building capacity? So yeah, let's do it.

Jonathan Hicken [02:36]:

I think about partnerships regularly, probably weekly, honestly, either we're thinking about partnering with someone in the community to tell an important story in our space, or I'm dealing with stakeholders at uc, Santa Cruz, different academic departments, administrative departments thinking about how we might partner up to deliver some sort of product or some sort of impact. I'm constantly, constantly thinking about partnerships and therefore that's why I'm always coming back to this article. I think it's the single most influential piece of partnership literature out there. And so John and Mark go through these five ingredients for successful collective impact effort. The first is a common agenda. That's what they call it. They call it a common agenda. Another way to think about this is it is a common understanding of some of the things that you and I talk about regularly on this podcast. It is a shared understanding of the problem, a shared understanding of the circumstances, a shared vision for the change that we want to see, and even down to a shared set of steps, an agreement, if you will, about the set of steps necessary to deliver change.

Eric Ressler [03:51]:

Now, I know we're going to get to pitfalls later, but to me it's probably not a coincidence they started with this one because it sounds like if this is not true, the partnership is kind of failed from the beginning, right? There's no chance of a partnership working out. In your experience how often, it sounds like it might be kind of hard to get there.

Jonathan Hicken [04:12]:

It's kind of like, in my experience, it's a high volume, low success rate phenomenon. In other words, I'm talking with other organizations and academic departments regularly about potential for partnership. I think the pitfalls is that we sort of trick ourselves into believing that common agenda exists and you step down the path a little bit and then you realize you really don't have that shared agreement, but then social connections start to kick in and then you're like, oh, I don't want to back out on this. This is someone I care about or someone whose relationship I need to preserve. And so yeah, certainly this is a really risky point. I have partnership conversations all the time, and I think one of the important things I do is to identify when we're not a good fit and we actually don't share that agenda.

Eric Ressler [05:09]:

So you have to not only be really clear about all of those elements when you're exploring partnerships, but also really honest if it's just not quite lining up. So maybe even, and you tell me if this is how you approach it, just being really upfront with a potential partner like, Hey, I don't know if this is going to be a fit or not, but let's just start to explore it. I can't make any promises yet, but let's go on this path together and see is there a potential partnership here, but let's be okay with realizing that's maybe not true and still having a good relationship afterwards.

Jonathan Hicken [05:39]:

It's of utmost importance that that's how the conversation starts. Otherwise, you may incidentally feel like you've misled the person on the other side of the table, and that's the worst case scenario, especially when you're working in a sector where the network is really strong, people know people, and you don't want to earn this reputation as someone who just backs out of agreements all the time. So having that really honest and upfront conversation about, Hey, I'd love to explore it a little bit, but I can't promise our participation yet.

Eric Ressler [06:13]:

Yeah,

Jonathan Hicken [06:14]:

Okay. So it was number two. Number two, a shared measurement system. Another way to think of this is do we agree on what success looks like and how do we know that that's happening? And do we have the capability as a collective to measure those things, which honestly is a conversation that should be happening internally also, right?

Eric Ressler [06:39]:

But often doesn't.

Jonathan Hicken [06:41]:

And look, if you don't have those measurements for yourself in your own organization, don't even listen to this episode. You got to go nail that for yourself, what success looks like and how are you measuring it? But it also is something that you're bringing to the table in a collective impact situation. It's a value add. If you get to the table and you're like, Hey folks, here's our vision, here's the problem and the situation, et cetera. Here's how we are measuring success, and we have that data and we can bring that to the table and we can help this whole group measure what's going on now in a collective impact situation. Everybody needs to agree that that is a measurement worth including in this effort. Sure. All of this is easier said than done.

Eric Ressler [07:28]:

I was just going to say, I think a lot of people, what I've noticed is that people get scared of measurement and evaluation and learning and because it's hard, so they just don't, which is obviously not the right solution. So I would want our listeners to walk away feeling inspired about this as an opportunity, and I think we'll get to this at some point around one of the potential benefits of any kind of partnership or collective impact effort is maybe if you're not really strong here, you can find a partner who is and do some cross-learning there. But the way that I've been thinking about this, because frankly, measurement, evaluation and learning has not been until recently, relatively recently, a strong suit of cosmic and the work that we do. And I've been working really hard to build out that capacity and that strength. And I think that one of the reasons that I hadn't built it out is I was scared that maybe I wouldn't like what I saw when I started measuring stuff.

[08:23]:

It's a lot easier to just be like, Hey, did you like it? So I think that my recommendation to our listeners as someone who has somewhat recently been going through this is not a new thing for us, but in the last five years or so, something we've been building capacity on over time is that you just got to start with a number, an easy thing to measure and just build on that foundation. You don't need to go from, we measure nothing to, we have every possible measurement we would ever want, and it's perfectly scientifically accurate and stress tested. This is not going to happen. So what are the steps from where you are to where you want to be? And just take that first step and bring that to the table in the partnership

Jonathan Hicken [09:07]:

In a collective impact or partnered environment. The simplicity is king. I think where oftentimes we'll be coming to the table with different micro measurements, and sometimes we have to back up and ask ourselves, what's the umbrella level measurement that captures what we're both measuring here? And so oftentimes it's like, Hey, can we all agree on what is the master measurement, even though we're all measuring these sub components along the way?

Eric Ressler [09:41]:

The other important point that relates to measurement that I think is especially important for partnerships is that everyone actually does have a way that they're going to measure this, whether or not they know it. And sometimes the way that people will measure success does not get shared until the measurement is happening. And then the partnership in this case is being assessed for its effectiveness. So the measurement might be one of the leaders at one of these orgs really wanted this thing to be true, and if that is true, they will be happy. And if it's not, they will not be. And if they don't have the self-awareness to know that's how they're going to subconsciously be measuring the success of this and none of the other partner organizations know that, then there's a high likelihood that it'll fail. So I think getting clear on how to measure success, even if it is, like you said, an umbrella or a macro metric is so important because it also makes it less emotional and less subjective and more objective around did this happen or not? Which is good for accountability, but also for just clarity for everyone involved to just know this is how we're going to measure whether or not this effort is successful. And if that's not true, then it becomes way more murky. There's way more social pressure, there's way higher likelihood of failure or misalignment of expectations. So I think this step is super important.

Jonathan Hicken [11:07]:

A shared measurement system, sometimes it takes time to see some of the results appear. Collective partnered efforts can take years. And so some of the evaluation that is happening from one of the participating organizations is qualitative. And so what's important in that there is clarity on what's going to make it feel like it's progressing. But then there's also just communication between the organizations all the time.

Eric Ressler [11:33]:

And I mean you could start to look at some leading indicators. You could measure where maybe it's not end state measurements yet, but it's leading indicators of that or even milestone based measurement. Did we get the stuff done that we know is going to be working towards this mission? It's not a result, but it's a major milestone, a major accomplishment. So there's other to measure things objectively that aren't end state measurements too.

Jonathan Hicken [11:56]:

I love that. You're absolutely right about that. And so I would say going into a collective effort, I would actually make that a priority. Hey, let's define the leading measurements and then the lagging measurements. The third ingredient in the collective impact recipe is mutually reinforcing activities. That's how John and Mark put it in the article. The way I interpret that is the role is your role and each organization, the assumption is that each organization is bringing a unique set of skills, talents, audience reach, whatever. And it's really important at the outset to define what those roles are and how they work together, how they reinforce the ultimate impact that we're having. And so having defined but also differentiated roles becomes really, really important.

Eric Ressler [12:49]:

I think especially the differentiated part, because that's probably the true power of a partnership at the end of the day, is that everyone can bring a unique set of strengths and opportunities and resources to the table. Otherwise it's just kind of a scale play. If that's not true, yeah, a partnership might still make sense. Maybe a merger makes sense, more at that point, but then it's just kind of people power and hey, maybe sometimes that's worth it. But the way that I've seen this really make a bigger impact is when there are unique but complimentary strengths, the different organizations can bring together to kind of reinforce shortcomings between them.

Jonathan Hicken [13:29]:

An example from the Seymour Center is I see our role in the community is as being an amplifier or a storyteller. There are scientists doing the science about climate change and climate impacts. There are people, nonprofits, the city, the county doing some of that boots on the ground adaptation work or resilience work. Our role in it is to tell the stories,

[13:51]:

And I think that's just an example of how in this particular case, a clear differentiated role works because my colleagues in the science and in the conservation action side of things, some of them don't have the capacity to do the storytelling. So we're bringing a unique value to the table. The fourth piece of the collective impact recipe is continuous communication. And the assumption here is essentially that collective impact and partnered efforts, they take time. It takes a lot of time and a lot of time that investment of time is worth it. It just takes time and there's a level of patience that has to come along with it. The other piece is that there has to be communication. There has to be communication between the organizations. And I think actually your suggestion of milestones that are being hit along the way in combination with these different roles can be sort of the backbone to the communication, but a collective impact effort, stop or fail. If you stop talking to each other and you don't put in the work over enough time.

Eric Ressler [14:57]:

You're preaching to the choir on this one. Man. I mean, I think a lot of times when people think about strategic communications or communications in general, they're thinking about outward communications or marketing or campaigns, and that's a huge part of the value of communications. But so much of it is also inward, right within your own team, but especially between partners and effective communications is just so important for all of this work to work well. And even some of the things that we talk about on the show a lot about how to do better at communications from an outward perspective are applicable here. How do you frame these communications between partnerships to keep the energy up, to get people to sit up straight and pay attention? I think it's relevant in this case too.

Jonathan Hicken [15:44]:

The last component is backbone support is how John and Mark put it. The way I think of that is owners ownership, and I think that can fall into a couple of different buckets, but I do believe that though there is a collective impact effort underway. A singular organization needs to be the flag bearer needs to be the torch bearer of that work. They're the ones responsible for calling the meetings and setting the agendas. They're the ones who are responsible for doing the core, communicating with the rest of the group. They're seen as the convener and the organizer. I also think in some cases that there needs to be a financial backbone organization. Those don't always have to be the same. Sometimes they are. If one organization is suited to take both roles, oftentimes those are different groups, but ultimately there has to be ownership and there has to be collective buy-in that those are the owners that we need to agree that we have leaders and we're going to follow their lead.

Eric Ressler [16:47]:

I imagine that sometimes this gets kind of tricky. How do you decide who takes that role? How do you get that buy-in from all of the organizations involved that not only are they going to kind of own and be the torch bearer, but that we have to even sometimes go along with decisions we disagree with because they are the leading organization. There's never going to be perfect consensus on all of this. So yeah, I mean this is really smart in my opinion because I think a lot of times there isn't a leader clearly identified or a leading organization clearly identified, and it feels like it just becomes fully flat hierarchically or completely democratic,

Jonathan Hicken [17:27]:

Which doesn't always work. I mean, even in my own staff, we use a goal setting objective system called objectives and key results, and every result has an owner. And it doesn't necessarily mean that that individual is solely responsible for the work required to deliver the outcome, but that they are the one responsible for rallying the resources, the people making sure that the projects are advancing and they do own a, there's a certain responsibility that comes with that. And if I see a number lagging, that's the person I go to

Eric Ressler [18:07]:

In the movie world, this would be like the producer, right?

Jonathan Hicken [18:09]:

Exactly.

Eric Ressler [18:10]:

The producer doesn't necessarily do the work, but they make sure the work gets done.

Jonathan Hicken [18:13]:

That's right. And I think in a collective impact situation, the same must exist. The other reason for that is that I see is this is a human problem in some ways, given that collective impact takes time. Think about all the things that could happen in life over the course of 3, 5, 7 years. Staff is going to turn over. Technology's going to change, the problem's going to change.

[18:38]:

And with so many moving parts, there needs to be an organization who's the anchor point, even the individual who may be the first one leading as the backbone organization. Let's just call them Jane for a moment. Let's say Jane is the one doing most of the communicating and the convening, and then Jane moves on to another job. That organization needs to be prepared to move somebody else into that role. Meanwhile, all of the other partnering organizations, there's going to be turnover there. There's going to be changes there. So without that solid pillar holding it all together, these things fall apart. Yeah, that makes sense. So one of the pitfalls I think of collective impact work in general is just simply messy human social interactions and messy human relationships.

Eric Ressler [19:31]:

The human equation should not be underestimated here.

Jonathan Hicken [19:34]:

Because there's going to be ego, there's going to be a concern, especially if there's overlap in roles, who's going to get the credit, right? Who's going to get the funding? And I think one of the pitfalls is, is that those real damage can happen between individuals, between teams, between organizations. If these collective impact efforts are not handled really clearly. Like John Mark layout in this article,

Eric Ressler [20:09]:

Maybe we should talk a little bit about why do this? When are the situations where exploring some kind of partnership or collective impact move makes sense? And maybe in your opinion, when does it not make sense?

Jonathan Hicken [20:23]:

I think from my point of view, it's worth pursuing when you look at the own scope of influence that your organization has and realize that you cannot deliver on your vision without the participation of other entities in your universe.

Eric Ressler [20:43]:

So you have a gap.

Jonathan Hicken [20:44]:

There's a gap. And actually, I mean this exists in my case, right at Seymour Center. We tell stories of science and solutions that are relevant to Santa Cruz, but by definition can't tell those stories unless science is happening and unless solutions are happening, and we, we're not the ones doing that stuff. So by definition, we must be in partnership with these organizations to make sure that we are playing our role and doing our part.

Eric Ressler [21:15]:

So if you're an organization that has a gap that you've identified that is a requirement to reach your vision, to create the impact that needs to be created, how do you think about partnerships versus capacity building? Why don't you just do all that stuff, Jonathan? That seems logical.

Jonathan Hicken [21:36]:

Well, in our particular case, the efforts to build a credible scientific effort and to build expertise to do really difficult environmental planning and execution. I mean, that's just impossible in my lifetime for our organization to do that. I just don't think I'll be around to see that through.

Eric Ressler [21:57]:

And I joke about this a little bit because I think that's sometimes what I see happen is that leaders identify gaps and their first reaction is to like, well, we'll do that too. Well, we have to do that too. And they see it's out of good faith. They see, oh, they realize, oh, in order for us to reach our mission, this part also has to happen and we're not doing that. I guess we better do that also. So maybe one of the potential benefits of Collective impact or a partnership exploration is that it reduces mission and scope creep.

Jonathan Hicken [22:30]:

I also think that it takes a level of self-awareness to be honest with yourself about what you are uniquely positioned to do and what are you uniquely capable of doing and looking outside of your organization and being like, you know what? They're better at that part. And so we can help each other. Why not give that a try? Fame ego? I don't know. More funding fair,

Eric Ressler [22:54]:

Sure.

Jonathan Hicken [22:54]:

But at minimum, if it's worth a conversation, we started this conversation about like, Hey, hey, I've got this idea. I'm not ready to commit, but I want to talk to you about a potential partnership here.

Eric Ressler [23:07]:

I think about that sometimes. This is actually oddly an issue that we struggle with at Cosmic at times, which is where do we draw the line on what we do and what we don't do, especially because we do work really holistically with clients and our clients need holistic support. They're not looking for, oh, we just need someone to just do a rebrand and then that's it. The clients that work with us realize that that's not going to be the most effective investment for them, and we can't do everything. We're a small team. We're a really solid team, and we do have a diverse set of skills that the power of each of our skills coming together is kind of the magic. But we've identified a couple things that not only are we not good at, but we have no plans to get better at, and that we do reach for partnerships for.

[23:56]:

So for example, we don't do pr. That's not our thing. And there's a Venn diagram between the work that we do in pr. There's some overlap. Another example would be really technical performance marketing, the lever pulling work. I call it the hyper optimization of ads and split testing and measurement of those things. And hey, that work matters for some organizations and should be executed by a team of experts doing that. And sometimes we say, we need to do that. That's where we're at. We're at that level. Here's some folks that we know that are really good at it. Let's bring them into the loop. Because I don't have the technician on my team who does that super well, and I'm not particularly interested in building that skill out. I want to focus more on the strategy side of things at a higher level, the brand building side of things, the communication side of things, and they're very different mindsets and modalities. So this is ringing true even in the way that I think about how we set our scope as an organization,

Jonathan Hicken [24:58]:

At least in the setting that I operate in, where partnership opportunities are popping up all the time. Collective impact is in this community. We're constantly talking about it, and I got to imagine in other sectors, other communities, the same is true. And I think when you shouldn't pursue collective impact is purely because that's where the social effort or the social energy is going. I think that that's, you want to be a part, I know I certainly feel this, right? I'm speaking from a personal point of view right now. I want to be a part of efforts that are in this sort of environmental arena.

Eric Ressler [25:37]:

I like those folks that are doing cool work. Certainly there should be some way we can help each other out.

Jonathan Hicken [25:41]:

Exactly. And I care about some of my peers who are eds at other nonprofits and stuff, and these are friends and I want to be supportive. And that's hard. Sometimes it's hard to just be like, Hey, I can, you can't count on me for this one. This one's not it. But ultimately I think it strengthens when I do say yes, right? When I do say yes, it's like, okay, yeah, we think this is a slam dunk fit.

Eric Ressler [26:05]:

Well, I think these five steps are a really good accountability exercise because if you can't say hell yes to all five of those and do that right, then you're not going to be a very good partner. I think about the group project back in school where you have someone who said yes to the group project, either electively or they were forced to, and they're just not pulling their weight. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to be that person. Well, I mean maybe some people do, but not a good idea to be that person and it's not helpful to the collective.

Jonathan Hicken [26:35]:

One piece that I think is missing from John and Mark's article is that the collective effort should benefit every organization in their own right in some way. I do think that as soon as I think that a collective effort is siphoning away, time, expertise, resources, and that threatens the health or sustainability of my own organization, that is going to be a real difficult thing to stick with. And I don't think John and Mark call that out specifically, but I need to feel like my organization is going to benefit from it, partly because I'm accountable to the people I employ and I need to make sure that they're taken care of.

Eric Ressler [27:21]:

It has to be a win-win for everyone. There has to be some kind of energy equilibrium that is met, but it's never going to be perfectly equal probably, right?

Jonathan Hicken [27:29]:

I mean, rarely. Right? And I think probably 90% of the time collective impact efforts probably end up being the one organization, the backbone organization who's doing most of the work. And over time, that probably whittles down to more and more responsibility on that backbone organization. That doesn't mean don't do it, but if you are volunteering to be that backbone organization, I think you need to go in eyes wide open that it could end up in that kind of place.

Eric Ressler [27:59]:

The thing that I'm wondering about all of this is should in the early days, should there be some kind of kill switch or exit clause that's like, Hey, the partnership was successful, or this is planned to be a temporary partnership. At some point, maybe the backbone organization does plan to build out some of that capacity on their own, or maybe this part of the problem is now solved, it's time to move on. I know that sometimes is a fairytale that gets told in the space that rarely comes true, but does sometimes happen. So is there some kind of natural ending to these or they just in perpetuity?

Jonathan Hicken [28:36]:

I think it's a brilliant idea. I've never actually seen anybody do that, but it relates to sort of the milestones and the leading indicators that you brought up earlier of like, Hey, within this band, if we drop below here, let's kill it. And defining that early on. Honestly, this would be a relief if everybody's kind of in agreement that this is feeling burdensome. It's going to feel good to be done with it after some time,

Eric Ressler [29:01]:

And to have some kind of objective measure versus someone having to make that social call that's like, Hey, I don't think this is working anymore. Totally. Yeah. You point to this poster on the wall and it's like, Hey, we're done.

Eric Ressler [29:13]:

Or even just to say, Hey, the red light went off. Do we want to keep going and try and fix this thing, or are we all going to call it?

Jonathan Hicken [29:18]:

Yeah, exactly. Well, look, I actually want to thank John and Mark for writing this article. It's one I've referenced numerous times over the last 10 or 12 years. We will link to it in the show notes. I recommend everybody gave it a close look and good luck out there on all your collective impact efforts.

Eric Ressler [29:34]:

Surely they're both longtime listeners and will write comments to us about this, but I could, but thanks, Jonathan. 

Jonathan Hicken:
Thank you, Eric.