Developing Powerful Partnerships: Making Collaboration Work

Developing Powerful Partnerships: Making Collaboration Work Andy Beck, Executive Director, School & Main Institute

2014 Nonprofit Empowerment Summit Giving It Our All!

Developing Powerful Partnerships Nonprofit Empowerment Summit June 3, 2014

Developing Powerful Partnerships

About School & Main Institute

• National non-profit focused on cross-sector collaboration

• Started in 1985 as an “R &D” group in Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy & Management

• Work with organizations (small, medium, large/local state, federal) working together in partnerships, collaborative efforts trying to do together what they cannot do alone

We help organizations work across institutional lines or in “uncommon” coalitions to improve their communities and

the lives of young people living in them.

© School & Main Institute, Inc.

SMI’s Partnership Efforts FEDERAL: Shared Youth Vision – partnership between Federal

Departments of Labor, Education, Health & Human Services, Justice, Housing, Transportation, Social Security; Corporation for National and Community Service

STATE: Cross Agency Collaboration – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Alabama, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Maine, Ohio, New Jersey, Georgia, Mississippi, etc.

COMMUNITY: Local Partnership Work - Boston, MA; Kansas City, KS; Dothan, AL; Springfield, MA; Newport News, VA; Tarrant County, TX; Hartford, CT; Malden, MA, etc.


PARTNER SHIPS

COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES

SCHOOLS

CIVIC & RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS

EMPLOYERS/WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

YOUTH & FAMILIES AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMS

COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS


PARTNERSHIPS


School & Main Institute: What Experience Has Taught Us A Few Framing Thoughts & Guiding Principles

Keys to Collaborative Success New

Thinking

Mutual Self-Interest

Vision of Results

Foundation Building Blocks

(Asset Map)

Collaborative Infrastructure

Collective Action


Let’s Take a Look at Your “Stuff”

At your table, brainstorm a list of the pilots, programs, initiatives, projects, organizations, efforts, etc. that have anything to do with (let’s choose an example) helping young people succeed in your community.


Your “Stuff”

1. How is your “Stuff” connected?

2. How are we working together?

3. Do we need more “Stuff”?


Why Work in Partnership? • Broad-based ownership of the need and its solution

• Convening mechanism/forum for exploring common interests and agendas

• Provides a broad view of community assets

• Cost effective delivery of certain functions/support

• Integration of efforts – avoids duplication

• Leverage

• “One stop” shopping © School & Main Institute, Inc.

Partnership Fundamentals If partnerships drive change in education, workforce, youth, health, economic and community development:

What drives partnerships?

“Collaboration is an unnatural act between non consenting adults.”

Former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders

Self-Interest is Not a Dirty Word

1. Why is it in your and/or your organization’s self-interest to work in partnership?

2. 12-18 months from now, what do you and/or your organization need in order to stay engaged in a partnership?


Self Interests (examples) Educators

Parents

Community-Based Organizations

Employers

Higher graduation/retention rates Greater community support

Kids not living in my basement at 27

Greater involvement and access to business and schools Increased potential for financial support Meet organizational goals and outcomes

More prepared/trained workforce Good community citizen/PR


Self Interests (examples)

Post-Secondary Institutions

Youth

Government

Higher enrollment Connection to and credibility with the

business community

A diploma, a job, a good life

Increased credibility/positive perception More stable tax base/return on

investment Avoid costly problems later on


If Collaboration is Such a Good Idea… Why is it So Hard?

Add On? Add In?

History and

Tradition

How?

Not What

We Do


Organizing Partnerships to Get the Work Done

Infrastructure—the combination of people, resources, systems, and organizational relationships you can use to accomplish your goals. Understand the difference between organizational structure and partnership infrastructure.


• Ensure Creation of Vision • Market Vision • Recruit Critical Partners • Assign Staff • Ensure Resources Available • Determine Operating Structure • Approve Implementation Plans or Proposed Improvements • Clear Blocks / Barriers • Ensure Policy Development and Changes • Ensure Expansion • Access & Use Data to Design & Implement Improvement Strategies

• Create Implementation Plans • Secure Needed Resources • Become Chairs of Implementation Teams • Recruit Implementers • Orient and Supervise Implementation Work • Target and Solve Problems / Barriers • Report to Leaders • Advocate for Policy Changes • Endorse Expansion • Access Data to Design & Implement Improvement Strategies

• Form Implementation Teams • Design and Implement Strategies • Propose Improvements Based on Evaluation Results • Identify Resource Needs • Recruit More Implementation Team Members • Identify Problems / Barriers • Identify Needed Policy Changes • Access & Use Data to Design and Implement Improvement Strategies

Leadership Functions Planning Functions Implementation Functions

Infrastructure for Powerful Partnerships


“Staff Facilitate...Partners Do”


When Staff Do and “Partners Advise” • Not enough "ownership" of vision, results, success/failure.

• Limits the amount of systemic change that occurs - partners not working their collaborative muscles.

• Decreases the resource base because partners who advise are not usually sharing their resources.

• Staff teams tend to be larger/more expensive -- when funding dries up, sustaining a large staff is difficult

• Staff are seen as the owners of the effort. If staff leadership goes....


When Partners Do and “Staff Facilitate” • Increases the number of leaders "owning" the work who

can ensure that this is integrated into their organization.

• Creates an atmosphere where partners plan, implement, assess their work -- and solve problems together.

• Increases the size of results that partnerships can achieve.

• Integrates resources (human, material, and financial) into a partnership budget and extends the resource base.

• Decreases the size of staff and actual hard dollars needed to operate but serves more people.


Partnership Action Plans – Old & New Strategy Activity When Who

Marketing partnership effort

Draft one pager/mission Tomorrow Coordinator

Fill leadership gaps Call/meet with mayor, large employers, Schools Supt, CBO leaders

Next week Coordinator

Explore sustainable funding short/long term

Research opportunities/ write RFP

Three weeks

Coordinator

Strategy Activity When Who

Marketing partnership effort

Draft one pager/mission Next 30 days

Marketing Director YMCA

Fill leadership gaps Call/meet with mayor, large employers, Schools Supt, CBO leaders

On-going Peer to Peer - leadership across partnership

Explore sustainable funding short/long term

Research opportunities/ write RFP

60-90 days Resource Committee

New Thinking

Self Interests

Shared Vision of Results

Keys to Partnership Success

Collaborative Infrastructure

We map our community assets so we are inclusive & understand

our strengths, gaps and the implications of each

To get results together that we could not get

alone... “staff must facilitate and partners

must do”

We understand this is hard work. It is not running a program or how we are used to working

The fuel that drives and sustains partnership work (mutual interests)

Together we have determined our desired destination - our purpose for working together, target outcomes and initial priorities

Foundation Building Blocks We create a sustainable

infrastructure that allows us to get the work done

collaboratively

Collective Action


So…Are we Collaborating? Levels of Collaboration

Isolation

Communication

Coordination

Collaboration

Integration

Source: Systems of care stages of integration; based on Burt, Spellman (2007)

Agencies don’t recognize the need to communicate, no attempt to communicate

Agencies talk to each other, share some information

Staff from different agencies work together on a case-by-case basis to coordinate some support

Agencies work together on a project-by-project basis, including joint analysis, planning

Intensive collaboration, agencies are interdependent, significant sharing of resources, high level of trust

Your Work Many of you are involved in partnership work. Some big/some smaller – partnering with one or two organizations

Pick one of the collaborative pieces of work you are involved in: (share with a partner)

• What works about it?

• What’s hard about it?/Where do you get stuck?

• Based on our discussions so far – what could you do to be a better partner?


Top Ten Big Lessons 1. We are “activity rich – yet systems poor.” 2. Self Interests are the fuel that “power up”

partnership work. 3. Mutual self interests sustain partnership work -

and are what will keep you at the table. 4. “Partnership is a VERB, not a noun.” 5. Can’t go it alone? Develop a “shared vision” that

takes you where you want to go.


Top Ten Big Lessons 6. Have MOU/ agreements that are more than just paper

7. Powerful partnerships” look at their resources as an integrated resource base, with each partner's human/ material/financial resources in play

8. There is no director of collaboration or office of coordination in any city we know.

9. Collaboration isn't about splitting up the check. It’s about splitting up the work!

10. Have some fun. This is hard work and no one likes a grumpy partner


In Summary What Makes Partnerships Powerful?

• Self-interests are clear – mutual interests drive the work • You connect what already works • You are serious – this is the way you work (add in) • Your partnership is not one or two deep – that will survive

personnel/ leadership changes • Move the parking lot into the partnership meeting room • You hold each other accountable even when you do not

work for each other • Staff facilitate – partners do • You focus on results/use data, etc. - but nurture your

collaborative process that allows you to do things you could not do alone


Questions?

Andy Beck School & Main Institute

[email protected] www.schoolandmain.org

617-227-2100 x111

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.schoolandmain.org/

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Developing Powerful Partnerships: Making Collaboration Work