By Jocelyne Daw and Richard JanzenEvery nonprofit or community-minded organization is looking to pass the torch to the next generation, finding someone to take up “The Cause” and continue the good work. This work is vitally important to building and maintaining communities, helping the disadvantaged, and connecting us with like-minded people.
Reflections On My Partnership Brokers Training
Guest Blog - Rebecca Aird, Director Grants and Community Knowledge, Ottawa Community FoundationIn February this year, I participated in a 4-day training course by the Partnership Brokers Association. Participants included reps from post-secondary institutions, government agencies, funders, and not-forprofit organizations.
Conditions for Effective Partnerships
By Jocelyne DawEveryone talks about partnership. But talking about collaboration isn’t the same as doing it. Genuine collaboration is hard, especially when it requires working across sectors and systems. Ineffective partnerships can be wasteful and challenge traditional power dynamics. It can be regarded more as a charming concept than as a legitimate practice to improve outcomes. Partnering isn’t the clear answer to every problem.
Shifting the Funder's Partnership Paradigm
Donors increasingly play a critical role in funding cross-sector collaborations. In fact, many require “partnerships” for funding to be provided. They rightly belief partnerships can be innovative, far reaching, scalable and sustainable. But donors often struggle to appreciate the challenges and hard work involved in true partnerships. And while their intentions are genuine, practice suggests funder driven partnerships have often stifled rather than optimized multi-stakeholder collaborations.
The time is now. Cross-sector collaboration as a ‘seed’ for renewing the world.
“Partnering and collaboration are critical… if we are to create a more inclusive and sustainable world.”It is not a not a lone voice making this claim.I’d even venture to say the idea – that cross-sector collaboration is required to address the challenges facing the world – is just about mainstream.Which is not to say we’ve all worked out how to do it.Otto Scharmer, author of ‘Theory U’ and Co-Founder of U.lab writes regularly in the Huffington Post.
Diversity in Partnerships Is Uncomfortable – And That’s Good!
In the coming years the community landscape will look dramatically different. Growing demands on resources and increasingly complexity of issues will require bridging traditional and untraditional boundaries to create powerful partnerships for social change. As a result, diversity will be inevitable. As different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives get blended, cognitive diversity will increase. Cognitive diversity is defined as the differences in our thought and problem-solving processes.
Four Steps to Building a Strong Partnership Culture
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is management guru, Peter Drucker’s most famous quote. Nowhere is this truer than in partnerships. Partners work across organizations and sectors and must adapt to diverse approaches and styles. More often than not, focus is put on building project strategies but not on HOW the project goals will be achieved – through a culture and mindset of collaboration. The soft stuff is always the hard stuff. So how do you create a partnership culture to drive success?
10 Real Signs of Partnership
Since I started my consulting firm over seven years ago, partnership – brokering, coaching, training and advocating for them, has been a central part of my practice. But sadly, partnership has become a blanket phase to describe many “business as usual” organizational relationships. It is beginning to lose its true meaning. This is especially disillusioning when the term ‘partnership’ is used as a soother, a calmative, to disguise the real challenge and struggle of collaborating meaningfully.
An Update on Shared Value Around the World
So far, 2017 has been a year of stability and scaling for shared value. Shared value was introduced over six years ago as an innovative new approach addressing social needs with a business model to achieve social and economic value. While some of the initial excitement has faded, many companies have found success with this strategy and are reaping the benefits of more effective community-business relationships while creating new economic value.
Partnership Brokers Training – Applications Now Open!
We are delighted to announce the Partnership Brokers Association together with JS Daw & Associates and Edmonton Chamber of Voluntary Organizations is now accepting applications for the four-day foundational Partnership Brokers Training course. This course will be held in Edmonton from October 3rd - 6th, 2017. Click here to learn more and apply.