The Partnership Brokers Association

Earlier this year, PBA let our networks, Associates and alumni know that we had partnered with ANZ Bank in Australia to establish and launch inaugural Partnering Awards – which were designed to raise awareness in Australia, of the importance of attention to good partnering processes in cross-sector partnerships in support of delivering important social change outcomes.

The Awards attracted an outstanding group of cross-sector applicants from across Australia, and four finalists were identified by the judging panel, who were drawn from experienced PBA Associates and accredited PBT alumni: Kate Hayes, Cam Willis, Cath Scarth, Trish Edwards, Ingo Kumic and Michelle Commandeur. The judging panel was co-convened by long-time Julie Mundy and Helen Fenney, who guided the judges through a rigorous judging process, jointly developed by ANZ and PBA, which considered the PBA partnering principles amongst other criteria.  Of all the principles, applicants spoke most convincingly to that of ‘courage’ and how they had had to operate outside their comfort zones to do things differently in order to succeed together.

Just Healthy Families (JHF), a health justice partnership embedding free legal help into health and social service settings across Tasmania, was announced as the recipient of the inaugural ANZ-PBA Partnering Award. The JHF initiative aims to co-locate lawyers with health professionals, to ensure lawyers are routinely in the right place at the right time when clients need assistance from their trusted health or social service provider. The JHF partnership is a collaboration between two legal services (Women’s Legal Service Tasmania and Tasmania Legal Aid) and three health and community partner organisations (Child Health and Parenting Services, Child and Family Learning Centres and Hobart Women’s Shelter) as well as the University of Tasmania and Tasmanian Government. In receiving the award, the JHF partnership will also be given professional development opportunities with PBA, up to the value of $6,000 (incl. GST).

ANZ’s Janet Liu, the Just Healthy Partnerships representatives, PBA’s Julie Mundy.

The Women’s Legal Service Tasmania CEO, Yvette Cehtel said: “This project is a Tasmanian first, approached in a truly innovative way. We asked lawyers to step out of their comfort zones and try something new. As partners, we’re honoured to have our vision and work celebrated through this Award. Together, we know we can continue to achieve positive outcomes for the over 3,000 women we’ve assisted throughout the life of this project.”

PBA Associate, Julie Mundy said: “We received some impressive applications from a range of sectors. Just Healthy Families demonstrated a strong culture of openness between partners with the co-location of the JHF lawyers within the health services in order to enable vulnerable families to access their services in a trusted environment.  The success of the program, in turn has helped build trust between partners who could see first-hand the impact the service had on clients.”

Other finalists for the award were partnerships established by Our Watch and Victoria University (Prevention of Gender-based Violence in tertiary education settings ), Inland Rail, TAFE NSW, Clontarf Foundation and Martinus Rail (First Nations Skills Development & Training), and Justice Connect and Telstra (Building Digital Inclusion and Legal Resilience).

ANZ Head of Social Impact and Community, Janet Liu said: “The ANZ-PBA Partnering Award was established to recognise effective cross-sector partnership practice in Australia. ANZ and PBA believe good partnering practice can lead to transformative change and sustainable relationships, ultimately delivering long term benefits for the Australian community.”

The Awards night was hosted spectacularly in late October by ANZ at their headquarters, and was well-attended by over 100 decision-makers and partnership practitioners. Ian Dixon, one of the pioneers of cross-sector partnering in Australia and a key PBA Associate over many years, was kind enough to emcee the event and shared his experience of partnership brokering over the career. Two of the judges, Cath Scarth and Cam Willis, also shared their insights from the judging and their own brokering experiences, on the night. It was great to see a good turn-out of Australian PBT Alumni, Associates and trainers at the event, who rarely get the chance to gather and celebrate.

Some of the PBA crew in attendance: Yeshe Smith, Dianne McLay, Ian Dixon, Michelle Halse, Julie Mundy and Cam Willis.

It has been a wonderful experience forging the partnership with ANZ and working together to design and deliver the inaugural Awards. It seems fitting too that the cross-sector Awards are delivered by a cross-sector partnership! We very much hope that the Awards will continue and flourish from here on. Our next steps are to undertake a reflection to see what we have learned along the way and consider what we would do differently.  Cam, Julie and Michelle will also be working to synthesis some learnings from the first year’s applications which we plan to share more broadly in the coming months.

For further information about the Awards, please feel free to contact Julie Mundy juliepmundy@gmail.com

The Partnership Brokers Association and ANZ are inviting applications for the inaugural Australian ANZ-PBA Partnering Award. The applications close on Friday 16th August 2024. Further information and application forms can be found here: https://www.anz.com.au/about-us/esg/community/award/

The award celebrates cross-sector partnerships which demonstrate excellence in the management of Australian-based collaborations between organisations which address a social or environmental issue. The winning partnership will receive professional development opportunities with PBA up to the value of $6,000 (incl. GST) and be recognised at the Awards evening.

In June 2023, partners of the Sustainable Development Goals Partnership (SDGP) facility of RVO gathered to share their experiences and write their stories about engaging in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). The writing workshop (‘writeshop’) was part of a four year PBA accompaniment trajectory to RVOs SDG Partnerships. A number of PBA Associates worked on this accompaniment trajectory. The writeshop is a method of the Barefoot Guide to help practitioners reflect on their practice, and was facilitated by the Barefoot Guide Connection together with PBA.

Stories from the frontline of Public Private Partnerships is an anthology of eleven compelling stories, each of them a testament to the trials, triumphs, and untapped potential inherent in PPPs. Accompanying the stories are an analysis and insights, all of which capture the essence of our collective pursuit: to find ways to work together that make a difference.

This year’s edition of the CSSI Symposium is hosted by the University of Cape Town.
PBA Associates will host an online panel discussion on 5th April on Working with communities: Can partnership brokering help to navigate power imbalances (and promote inclusion)?
The panel will be convened by Leda Stott and Bulbul Baksi, and the speakers will be Kwasi Amponsah Boateng, Anindita Majumdar, Olukayode (Sbaba) Soremekun and Peni Tawake. Drawing upon experiences from different country and cultural contexts the panel will discuss whether partnership brokering and the promotion of principle-based collaboration can make a difference in the navigation of power with and among marginalised communities, and how it might assist communities to express and make use of their own power.

PBA contributed to an advocacy campaign involving UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Partnering Initiative and others, focused on creating a more enabling environment for partnerships. PBA Associates prepared a paper for the final report on the contribution and value that partnership brokers bring to partnerships.
The report was launched at the UN General Assembly in September. One of the key findings of the study was that a very significant determinant of a partnership’s success was related to having an independent third-party specialist providing facilitation and support. The report pointed out that partnerships need to invest in the process of partnering, where possible with the support of such a specialist (broker), to ensure inclusion, unlock innovation and set the partnership up for success. They should also build in stronger monitoring to demonstrate value creation, measure progress to allow adaptation, and keep the partnership healthy and effective.

• The Unite to Ignite report
• The Unite to Ignite case-studies

If you’ve ever worked in the development industry, you may have felt a sense of unease about the power dynamics at play. This month, in our Stories from Practice, we meet Soli Middleby, who delves into this discomfort and offers insights on how to navigate it, through her paper, “Mediating the power imbalances of development: A paradox for partnership brokers,”

Middleby argues that the western development industry is built upon complex and historic power imbalances that tend to center the interests and perspectives of donors. This can undermine effective partnerships and ultimately perpetuate the very inequalities that we aim to address.

Using the practice of partnership brokering as a lens, Middleby explores how these power imbalances operate in practice, how they can be disrupted, and how they are ultimately reproduced by brokers and other development professionals. She concludes that we face an uncomfortable paradox in which our work to transform power imbalances also maintains the identities, institutions and interests that reproduce them and that how we choose to hold this paradox is critical if we are to ever ‘rethink development’

This paper is a thought-provoking read for anyone in the development field who is grappling with these issues. It challenges us to consider how we can hold this paradox and still work towards rethinking development. You can read Soli Middleby’s paper here,  for more practical insights.

Annie Sloman

This month, in our Stories from Practice, we meet Annie Sloman, as she explores and reflects on how partnership brokering should, and can, support decolonization of aid.

Based on her experience as a partnership broker in Timor-Leste, Annie Sloman discusses possible contributions of partnership brokering to decolonization and combatting racism in international development and humanitarian action.

She unravels the hidden assumptions about power and privilege that we often take for granted in our practice, and how such assumptions can, in fact, be counter-productive in reducing systemic inequalities that we are working so hard to overcome.

She gives insightful ideas on how issues of power and privilege can be addressed immediately and continuously in ongoing partnership activities.

Read Annie’s paper for six practical guidelines as to what you can and should do differently in your practice, as a partnership broker – especially if you wonder whether your practice re-enforces colonial inequalities or transforms societies for a better world.

Join PBA Associates Bulbul Baksi, Leda Stott & Ros Tennyson during a panel discussion at the upcoming CSSI 2022: Cross Sector Social Interactions Conference. This will be a facilitated dialogue drawing on both academic and practitioner insights of participants on how partnership brokering can assist transformation in different contexts.
Click here to learn more.

PANEL: Partnership Brokering: Changing the Rules of the Game. From challenges to breakthrough.
DATE:   22^nd June 2022 | Time: 15:00 – 16:40 CET
REGISTER:   https://event.wur.nl/cssi-2022/subscribe

Please share this invitation with your networks.

The Partnership Brokers Association was commissioned by Charter for Change, through the Dutch Relief Alliance, to examine the interface between humanitarian and partnering principles, and contribute to the debate on principled humanitarian aid and localisation. The full report  ‘Towards Principled Humanitarian Action in Conflict Contexts – Understanding the Role of Partnerships’ captures the voices of over 120 local/national humanitarian practitioners in Nigeria and South Sudan, and provides some fresh insights into understanding how partnering might support/enable principled humanitarian action.

The report will be launched and discussed on Wednesday 2nd June at 2-3.30pm CET, at an online event moderated by PHAP. We invite you to register and join what will undoubtedly be an important and engaging conversation.

PBA’ s new service, 1-2-1 Professional Support for Partnership Brokers has been designed to support partnership brokers on-the-job, wherever they are in their practice. Whether you are taking on a new partnership brokering role, working through a challenge, aspiring to deepen your practice and grow your skills – you can benefit from 1-2-1 support. The service is provided by a Practice Partner – an experienced, PBA accredited partnership brokers – will work with you 1-2-1. You can choose the Practice Partner you would like to work with under one of the three support packages:

• Sounding Board: up to three focused sessions to navigate a specific partnership brokering challenge
• Deepen Your Practice: longer term professional development support, for example, one session per month over 10 months, plus sharing resources and tools
• On Demand: a set number of sessions to be used as and when needed, within a defined time, as agreed between you and your Practice Partner, a retainer-type agreement

More information on 1-2-1 Professional Support.

Download: 1-2-1 Professional Support brochure (pdf)

The Certificate in Brokering Partnerships Remotely is a five week course delivered online. The next training will be running from 8 September – 6 October 2021. Weekly webinars will be hosted on Wednesdays at 3:00PM UTC (8:00 Seattle & Vancouver / 10:00 Bogota, Lima & Mexico City / 11:00 Ottawa & Washington DC / 12:00 Brasilia / 15:00 Dakar / 16:00 Abuja & London / 17:00 Johannesburg & Madrid / 18:00 Nairobi).
The course is delivered in English but some of the materials (Course Manual) can be available in Spanish and Portuguese. Participants can also choose to submit their journals in Spanish or Portuguese instead of English.

To get more information and register for the course please visit the Remote Partnering website.

Over the last year, being able to collaborate effectively on partnerships, networks and alliances that are operating remotely has become a ‘must-have’ skill. Our online Brokering Partnerships Remotely course helps to grow your skills, confidence and competencies in brokering partnerships at a distance. This training is an opportunity to experiment and test out novel methods and solutions for the ‘new normal’ of operating remotely. Learnings from the course can be put to immediate use in your day to day partnering work.

Three regional cohorts have been planned for 2021 (more information and to register):

• Europe, Africa, Asia: 3 – 31 March 2021 with Bulbul Baksi, Ros Tennyson and Lola Gostelow
• Americas cohort: 5 May – 2 June 2021 with Catherine Russ, Helga van Kampen and Jocelyne Daw
  
• Oceania and South-East Asia: 18 August – 15 September 2021 with Julie Mundy and Kate Hayes

This course is also offered on commissioned basis. If your organisation might be interested, please contact info@partnershipbrokers.org.

Partnerships for the Goals: Is it time to reframe SDG 17 so it’s fit for transformation?

You can now watch the recording of the first in our series of Global Dialogues on Partnership.
SDG 17 – does it reflect an old paradigm of international cooperation? Of donor-recipient relations? Of developed-developing countries? Does it give primacy to economic growth? Why does it represent a narrow conceptualisation of partnerships, and use language that is contradictory to the language of transformation throughout Agenda 2030?

To watch please click here.

In this edition of our Stories from Practice we are bringing a thought-provoking piece on courage.

PBA Accreditation alumni Kym Burke takes us on a highly insightful journey of developing a personal perspective and meaning around what it takes to practice courageously and encourage others to do the same. Taking the partnership broker’s role and the concept of partnering into new territory, Kym explores the concept of courage in relation to fear, vulnerability and risks

Courage as a response to uncertainty is part of the partnering practice. Exposing one’s vulnerability in the face of the uncertainty of a particular partnering situation and how it might unfold irrespective of ‘best laid plans’ takes courage. The author expands on the idea of courage as a core value for partnering by exploring what it takes to practically embed it into one’s practice and how to build a capacity for courage in others. The paper explores the costs and risks of going beyond business-as-usual in search for better solutions and a better understanding of the challenges.

Read Kym’s paper here and tell us about your moments of courage and the break-throughs that followed on Twitter using #partnershipbrokers.