Collaboration and Partnerships
These days, with economic hard times causing funders to reduce their giving, there is pressure to do more with less. Some funders even go so far as to specify that they will favour those who develop projects that involve collaboration or partnerships with others on the assumption that this will be more efficient. Whether or not there is external pressure, joint ventures can often bring many benefits. But they are not that easy to create or implement over time. These sites provide many guidelines on how to create lasting partnerships that work.
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Collaboration is a mechanism for leveraging resources, dealing with scarcities, eliminating duplication, capitalizing on individual strengths, and building internal capacities.The University of Wisconsin-Extension has produced the most extensive and outstanding online manual on collaboration. It's a bit long but it is worth studying if you seriously intend to develop collaborative ventures. (Click in the "No Image" box)University of Wisconsin -
"Meeting the Collaboration Challenge: Developing Strategic Alliances Between Nonprofit Organizations and Businesses" is from the Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Drucker Institute). You can buy the book or get a downloadable version from this site.Leader to Leader Institute -
The U.S. based National Network for Collaboration provides a full (and free) online training course on how to develop successful collaborations between nonprofit organizations.National Network for Collaboration -
Check out this recent handbook on how to partner with others to promote policy change in the community. (Click on "No image")The Caledon Institute for Social Policy
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The final phase in the collaborative process is that of assessing the value of the joint activity once it has been in place for a certain period. A well-researched evaluation tool is presented in this site.Journal of Extension