MDF Unlocked:

Key takeaways from our first community panel on measuring, planning, and rethinking Market Development Funds. 

We hosted our first Expert Ambassador Panel and, honestly, it was one of the best conversations we've had as a community. MDF has been a staple of partner marketing programmes for decades, but it's also one of the most misunderstood and underused tools we have. So we brought together three partner marketing leaders with genuinely different perspectives to dig into it properly. What came out was practical, honest, and at times a real challenge to how we've been thinking about MDF.

Three perspectives:

PANELISTS:

Nathalie Gandolfo
Global Partner Marketing Manager · AWS
A seasoned marketing leader with 20+ years in IT, currently Global Partner Marketing Manager at AWS. Previously spent 20+ years at Microsoft in leadership roles including Senior Marketing Lead, where she transformed Microsoft's sales model and supported cloud adoption — training 1,000 people annually.

Marion Olsen
Global Partner Marketing Manager · Avalara
A global partner marketing leader with 15+ years driving partner-led growth through hyperscaler alliances (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft) and global system integrators. Her expertise spans cloud SaaS, cybersecurity, and generative AI, with proven success in co-marketing across Financial Services, Telco,
Healthcare, and Public Sector.

Varvara Sokrut
Senior Partnerships Leader
A senior partnerships and partner marketing leader with 8+ years building partner-led GTM engines in B2B SaaS. At iSpring, she built the partner marketing function from the ground up across EMEA, APAC, and LATAM. With a background in investment, banking, and as a founder, she brings a practical understanding of how partners actually think.

HOST

Pascale Smith
EVP Strategy · The Sherpa Group

1) Measurement

Start with the framework, not the budget 

Nathalie set the tone for everything that followed: measurement starts before you spend a penny. Two things have to be sorted before any campaign gets the green light.

On eligibility: write down what can and can't be funded. Lead gen, content syndication, events: yes. Networking drinks, travel, happy hours: no. Agreed and documented upfront saves enormous back-and-forth with sales later.

On objectives: know your lead-to-opportunity conversion rate and average opportunity value before the campaign starts. That way you can project pipeline, a real benchmark, not just leads and hope.

“Before launching any activity you need to set objectives. If an agency commits to 100 leads, you need to know your conversion rate and your average opportunity value to estimate the pipeline you will generate.”
Nathalie Gandolfo, Global Partner Marketing Manager, AWS

Marketing metrics and pipeline aren't the same goal

The panel's answer when asked which to measure: both but with a clear hierarchy. Pipeline generated is the goal. Marketing metrics like leads, registrations, and engagement rates are leading indicators. Think of them as the dashboard, not the destination.
On tools: a CRM as the single source of truth, a visualisation tool to make the data usable. Partners self-report by uploading opportunities, sometimes months after campaign close. Make this a condition of receiving funds. And remember: measurement is only as good as the handoff. Strong leads die if SDRs don't have what they need to follow up

2) Utilization

If MDF is not being used, planning is usually why 

MDF underutilisation came up quickly. Marion made the most important point: partners can't use MDF if they haven't budgeted for their half of it.

Most MDF models require a 50/50 co-investment. If the partner's 50% hasn't been planned for in their annual budget, the funds go unclaimed. It's a structural problem with a structural fix: get MDF into the annual planning cycle alongside every other budget line. 

“If you don’t have the other 50% and haven’t planned for it in your budget, you’re leaving money on the table.”
Marion Olsen, Global Partner Marketing Manager, Avalara

Give partners something to say yes to

Pre-packaged activities matter more than they sound. Nathalie's team at AWS provides a prospectus, a curated list of pre-approved events and activity types. Partners don't start from a blank page; they choose from a menu of
things known to work.

Many partner marketing contacts have to sell MDF activity internally, to sales, finance, and leadership. A prepackaged campaign with clear budget and expected outcomes is a far easier conversation than a vague comarketing concept. Plans fall apart because partners can't get internal sign-off, not because the idea was bad. 

3) The Reframe

What if MDF were an investment, not a reward?

Varvara put forward a reframe that's hard to argue with once you've sat with it.

Most MDF programmes allocate funds based on partner tier — Gold gets this much, Silver that much. It feels strategic, but Varvara's challenge is sharp: we're rewarding past performance, not investing in future growth. The consequence is reinforcing the same small group already driving most of the revenue, while the rest of the ecosystem stays put.

“If venture capital funds only invested in companies that had already succeeded, would we see new unicorns?”
— Varvara Sokrut, Senior Partnerships Leader

Open eligibility, selective funding

Varvara isn't proposing everyone gets MDF, but everyone gets to apply. Funding decisions are made on the quality of the business case, not the size of the tier badge. Innovation comes from unexpected places: a verticaldeep consultancy, a regional reseller in a fast-growing market, an integration partner unlocking a new use case. Open applications bring them forward and the ideas tell you where the market is moving.

Think like a portfolio manager

Practically: split the budget into three. Small bets for experimentation, mid-size for partners showing early traction, big bets for scaling what works. Every application carries a simple business case: target segment, expected
pipeline, measurement plan. The shift is from MDF administrator to portfolio manager — evaluating, prioritising, investing. Not every bet pays off; the ones that do tell you where to put more

4) Multi-Partner

Pooling MDF unlocks larger opportunities 

Marion's example: six partners pooled their MDF to fund a series of AI security symposia across EMEA, each costing around $200,000. No single partner had enough budget alone.

Together, they made it happen. The money is only part of it. Multiple partners around a shared campaign means combined brand weight, shared thought leadership, and a more compelling joint value proposition. A prospect who doesn't know your company might well know one of your co-partners. 

“It wouldn't even have been possible if we hadn't all been using our MDF. Nobody would have had enough budget on their own. And you get the power of all those brands together.”
Marion Olsen, Global Partner Marketing Manager, Avalara

Two things to sort before you start

Logo rules. Many MDF guidelines only allow two logos on proof-of-execution materials. A multi-partner campaign needs an exception, approved before launch. Finding this out at proof-of-performance stage is a very
unpleasant surprise.

Contribution clarity

When partners contribute very different amounts, ambiguity creeps in over decision rights. Agree who leads the programme before you start, not halfway through. On lead follow-up at multi-partner events, Marion's solution: every partner has their own scanner and follows up only on their own scans

Watch on-demand

The full Panel Discussion

Quick Reference

The eight things worth taking back

A quick summary:

1) Build your framework before you spend
Define eligibility, set pipeline objectives, agree how you'll measure — before a penny is committed.

2) Marketing metrics ≠ pipeline
Leads and registrations tell you if you're on track. Pipeline is the destination.

3) Plan MDF when you plan your budget
If partners haven't budgeted for their 50%, the funds won't get used. Annual cycle, every time.

4) Pre-packaged campaigns drive utilisation
Curated, pre-approved prospectuses reduce friction and help partners make the case internally.

5) Think portfolio manager, not administrator
Evaluate, prioritise, invest, learn, reinvest. It's how your finance team already thinks.

6) Open eligibility, selective funding
Let any partner apply. Fund on business case quality, not tier.

7) Pooling unlocks bigger activity
More complexity, but more reach, more brand weight, and a stronger story for customers.

8) Sort multi-partner logistics first
Logo rules, contribution levels, decision rights, lead ownership — agree upfront.

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How to act on this

Six places to start

You don't need to overhaul the whole programme at once. Pick one of these, run it for a quarter, and see what changes.

1) Audit your eligibility rules
Are they written down, shared, applied consistently? A one-page guide is a good start.

2) Bring MDF into partner planning
Build the co-investment requirement into the annual plan from day one.

3)  Build a pre-approved activity prospectus
Five to ten activities with expected outputs gives partners something to work from.

4) Introduce a business-case template
One pager: target segment, expected pipeline, success metrics. Raises quality immediately.

5) Carve out an open-eligibility pot
10–15% set aside for open experimentation reveals what the rest of your ecosystem can do.

6) Find one co-funding opportunity this quarter
Map your shared reseller base with a complementary partner. See what's possible.