Increasing the Capacity of Individuals, Families and Communities

Establishing Partnerships

Partnerships in Action | Managing Partnerships

Practical Steps to Forming and Managing Partnerships

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Now that you hopefully have a better understanding of the key components and categories of partnerships, where should you begin the process of partnership development? There are four essential steps to making sure you get your partnership off to a successful start.

Step 1: Defining the need for a partnership
Step 2: Starting the process
Step 3: Setting up and maintaining the partnership
Step 4: Implementing evaluation and monitoring

Step One: Defining the Need for a partnership
The goal in partnerships is to achieve more than individual organizations can achieve on their own. In other words, the whole of the partnership adds more than the sum of the individual parts. Bear in mind that the partnership should not be the end in itself but a means to an end. Therefore, establishing a "partnership" may not always be the appropriate decision.

The following questions provide a checklist to test out whether forming a partnership is the appropriate choice.

Is there a need for a partnership? On what basis is the partnership being set up? Is there a group of like-minded people with a shared vision who have decided that developing a partnership is the only route to achieving a goal? Are potential partners willing to support this?

What benefits will be gained from setting up this partnership arrangement? Are there clearly identified goals that only a partnership arrangement could help achieve? What is the "added value" for potential partners? Are they willing to sign up to this? What exactly is the partnership trying to achieve? How will involving others help the partnership to achieve its goals? Note the benefits and goals below and test with potential partners. Benefits: Goals:

Is someone else already doing something similar? Do other organizations have similar or the same goals? If so, have you considered approaching them to become part of their partnership arrangement to ensure work is not being duplicated? If this is not appropriate or feasible, think about incorporating lessons they have learned into the new partnership arrangements. Note your research conducted on potential duplicate partnerships.

Is there a commitment from partner organizations to support the partnership? Have you approached partner organizations with the possibility of setting up a partnership? Was their response positive? Was such a proposal supported at a high level and a clear commitment given to this? (It is important that partner agencies understand and agree to such proposals in order to support and direct future decision-making processes.) Note the outcome of any work carried out to identify potential commitments from partner organizations.

What strategies/local priorities will this partnership support? Consideration needs to be given to not only identifying the strategies and local priorities the partnership supports but also how the partnership will link to targets and strategies of partner organizations. If the partnership is divorced from any local strategic plan or priorities, you will want to monitor its existence as it will be totally isolated from any statutory/voluntary evaluation process. List the strategy/plan/local priorities the partnership will be supporting here and test these with partners.

Once the organizations have agreed to set up a partnership, the terms of the agreement need to be worked out. Theoretical and empirical research suggests three aspects of an ongoing relationship to facilitate cooperation: clarity of obligations, promptness of feedback and the institutionalization of reciprocity. In setting up a partnership, you will want to ensure that these three conditions will be met throughout the partnership.

Tips for Defining the Need for a Partnership Consult with all relevant stakeholders to establish a clear need for the partnership Check for any other partnerships doing similar work Ensure commitment is there to form the partnership from senior managers in partner organizations

• Clarity of obligations is needed so that a cooperative choice can be distinguished from a defection—referring to the Game Theory rules established earlier. If the partners are not able to agree on whether a given action was consistent with their obligations, they are likely to get into mutual recriminations. Unfortunately, clarity of obligations competes with the flexibility of implementation. Until a deep bond of trust develops between the two sides, it may be better to err on the side of clarity of obligations rather than flexibility in setting up a partnership.
  
  
• Promptness of feedback means that each side can monitor the behavior of the other so that any problems can be addressed before they become major grievances. Promptness of feedback strengthens the future by allowing a timely response to a perceived problem. Thus, in setting up the psartnership, the obligations of the two sides should be chosen so that their performance (or nonperformance) is observable as quickly as possible.
  
  
• The institutionalization of reciprocity can help by specifying in advance what form of review and redress is open if either side has a complaint about the other. What may be needed is some kind of WTO agreement for aid administration¹⁴ In the absence of such agreements, even informal norms can help prevent problems from echoing out of control.¹⁵

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Partnerships in Action | Managing Partnerships