Topic 5: Why and how should I create a partnership?

Before deciding to partner with an organization, it is important to know why partnering is so valuable. The Community Toolbox provides a checklist to guide the partnering process and ensure the partnership will be successful.

1. Describe the multiple organizations that have come together in common purpose.

1. What common purpose do you share?
2. Who do you represent?
3. Why does this partnership help you reach your goal? This will most likely answer your question of why the partnership is valuable. The problem you face may be complex or too large to accomplish alone. It may also be centered around people who are directly involved with the organization or come in contact with the organization on a routine basis.

2. Assemble the coalition's (group's) membership

1. Who needs to be directly involved? How will the organizations be represented?
2. Who will lead and what will they lead? Members will need to be assigned roles in order to accomplish specific tasks throughout the process. Look for leaders beyond the formal title. For example, look for leaders in volunteers, or those who are very passionate about the project. Sometimes the best leaders are those that do not normally take on a leadership role.
3. How and when will you connect with your community partner?

3. Outline your partnership's vision and mission

1. What is your partnership's common vision? What will the future bring?
2. What is your partnership's common mission? What will be done and why is it important?

4. State the objectives or goals, needed resources and relationships to accomplish your objectives, and key agents of change in the partnership.

1. What do you need to do and by when do you need to do it to reach your goals? What will be different in the community when you reach your goals?
2. What evidence do you have that the results from your goals will improve the community? Is there really a need? How can you prove this?
3. What resources do you need to accomplish your goal?
4. Who are your stakeholders?

5. Re-examine the group's membership in light of your vision, mission, and objectives.

1. Do you need more participation? Do you need more leaders in your partnership to make it work?

6. Describe potential barriers to your partnership's success and how you would overcome them.

1. If something went awry during the partnership how might you handle it? What are potential obstacles you predict may arise?
2. Where will meeting locations take place?
3. Have prior efforts failed? Are there any contingencies?
4. How will you decide on leadership roles?
5. How will you guarantee a link to the community to make the initiative successful?
6. How will you deal with funding and budget restrictions?
7. Do the benefits outweigh the costs? You want to be sure the partnership is purposeful and valuable. Communicate needs, concerns, and valuable connections in order to ensure a successful partnership.

7. Identify what financial resources will be needed to support the group's activities and infrastructure.

1. What is your budget? How will programs be implemented and where are the resources coming from?
2. How can community resources be utilized to save money?
3. What programs or services are prioritized if items have to be cut?
4. Who will be a part of the funding committee? Who will lead this?

8. Describe how the coalition will function as an organization and how responsibilities will be shared among partner organizations.

1. How will both partners change as a result of this collaboration?
2. How will work and responsibilities be divided?

9. Describe the structure the collaborative partnership will use to do its work.

1. How will you organize the tasks that must be completed?
2. How formal is your structure? Depending on the size of the project this may vary greatly.
3. Do you need task forces? If involved in a multi-operational initiative you may need to break up members into committees in order to complete various tasks.

10. Describe how the group will maintain momentum and foster renewal.

1. How will you keep your team engaged? Consider using the 6 R's for maintaining engagement.
   1. Recognition - providing some public acknowledgement of effort and achievement
   2. Respect - for example, listening to all ideas demonstrates respect for team members
   3. Role - making sure each person on the team has a defined role in the initiative
   4. Relationships - learn about one another and create a bond. This will help the process run smoothly, as well as encourage understanding
   5. Rewards - for example, a party or luncheon celebrating the successful completion of the needs assessment or citing on the library website the team members and their accomplishments
   6. Results - for example, sharing results on the library website or in a community newsletter
2. How will you plan the revisiting of your mission and vision statement to ensure you are on the right track? Consider planning regular checkpoints to see how your actions directly relate to achieving your goals. Do they align with your mission and vision (whether it is established, newly founded or revised)? Or do they seem off track?
3. How will you guarantee communication among group members? To keep the initiative going, communication among all group members is necessary. Consider using multiple ways to communicate, as well as encouraging feedback. For example, if meetings occur only once a month, consider communicating via Skype, email, or video chat.

11. If your team consists of a coalition of different people or organizations from the community and you notice it is beginning to lose momentum in achieving its goals or member numbers are diminishing, review current barriers to your success.

1. Can you identify what is hindering success? Why? How will you fix this?

12. If necessary, revisit your plan to identify and recruit new or additional members.

1. Could new members strengthen the project or add new perspective?
2. Are there any different ways new members could be involved? Consider volunteers, advertising, research, public events, etc.
3. How will you maintain current member interest?
4. Have any opposing viewpoints emerged that have hindered the progress of the initiative? Could these problems be solved with the addition of new perspectives?

13. When maintaining the coalition at its current level is no longer appropriate or feasible, consider other alternatives.

1. How will you deal with an unsuccessful partnership? Consider the following options: revise roles, revise focus, reach out to new organizations for support, minimize the scope (lesson the work), or if necessary, end the partnership.

ACTIVITY: The following URL is linked to a webinar on

Maximizing Community Stakeholders' Engagement  by Tom Wolff, provided by citymatch (The National Organization of Urban MCH Leaders). Click on section #17: "Failure to involve the community" on the outline to the left. Name three reasons why choosing not to partner with community organizations could have a negative effect on your initiative.

References

The Community Toolbox. (2017). Chapter 7, Section 8: Identifying and Analyzing Stakeholders and Their Interests. Retrieved from

https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/participation/encouraging-involvement/identify-stakeholders/main

Wolff, Tom. Maximizing Community Stakeholders' Engagement [webinar]. Retrieved from

http://webmedia.unmc.edu/Community/CityMatch/DataTraining/CommunityDimensionsofPractice/player.html