Course Description

Many of today’s societal, environmental, business sustainability and humanitarian challenges are so complex and interconnected that they can only be tackled by different sectors working together. Through partnerships we can contribute our small part and reap the benefits of everyone’s effort we can accelerate learning and distribute skills and knowledge and we can add depth and breadth to our community impact. To make real the promise of partnerships, however, we must be prepared to build, sustain, and evaluate them in a thoughtful way. However, effective collaboration between organizations with different approaches, missions, interests and cultures is difficult. It requires common understanding across partners of the process and challenges of partnering a collaborative mindset and a key partnering skill set. With these critical elements in place, partnerships can achieve real impact. Without them, partnerships are likely to under-perform or fail altogether.
 

Course Goal

To enhance the participants’ knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for effective cross-sector partnering.
 

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, participant will be able to:

• Understand the rationale for, and risks of, partnering and when, and when not, to partner.
• Predict and assess the value of prospective partnership.
• Appreciate the drivers, societal roles and mindset of each sector.
• Understand what constitutes a ‘transactional collaboration’, what is a ‘genuine partnership’ and where each may be appropriate.
• Understand the essential processes of partnering.
• Appreciate the ‘guiding principles’, challenges and success factors behind effective partnership.
• Understand what it takes to be a ‘good’ partner, and development of the skills and mindset required to partner well.
• Appreciate the different types of leadership required to partner well.
• Access to a range of tools to develop and manage partnership.
• Understand how to create agreements, implement, manage & review partnerships successfully.
• Be familiar with the “Partnering Cycle”, a framework for the development and management of partnership.
   

Who Can Benefit

Practitioners from all sectors who need to build their knowledge, understanding and skills of how to work effectively in partnership. It is suited both to new partnership practitioners and those with some partnering experience who wish to complement and formalize their learning with frameworks, practical tools and experiential learning.