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Defying Distance

We have just launched a new toolbox for those partnering remotely, developed by PBA and Action Against Hunger. To access it, please visit www.defyingdistance.org.

Partnership Brokers Training in London enrolling now!

We are pleased to announce that following the great interest in Partnership Brokers Training held in London in March 2017 we have just started recruiting for another course in London, scheduled for 9 – 12 October 2017. More information on the training can be found in the course brochure, which can be downloaded together with the application form from Partnership Brokers Training Programme page.

Doing development differently: partnership brokering in a programme addressing urban poverty in Bangladesh

How do you respond when a community asks you to help them to access health services, education and jobs when your programme doesn’t have funding for these things?  Managers of the Urban Partnerships for Poverty Reduction Project (UPPR), a large programme managed by UNDP in Bangladesh, did so by becoming expert partnership brokers.  They helped to create win-win collaborations between the communities themselves and local NGOs, Government departments and companies.

Tom Harrison was so impressed with this approach that he has written a paper explaining what he found when he was commissioned by UNDP to evaluate this programme.  He explains how the brokering works in practice and why he thinks this is a valuable lesson for any organisations seeking to ‘do development differently’ in the new SDG world.

Read the paper here: Partnership Brokering in UPPR

 

 

Issue 5 of Betwixt & Between – the journal for partnership brokers – out now

And it is quite an issue. Here’s a taster of the 6 articles, followed by some useful links:

Diversity as an essential partnership ingredient: Marcia Dwonczyk

Addressing complex issues will need partners with different purpose, experiences, & approaches – such  diversity is key to innovation. There is a role for the Partnership Broker in supporting & challenging partners to stretch beyond the obvious partners, and work beyond their comfort zones.

Brokering shorter food supply chains: Rafal Serafin

“Partnership brokering is needed because collaboration… must encompass not just farmers and consumers, but also other stakeholders in the local food system, including public agencies, community groups, media, schools, researchers…. An investment in partnership brokering in this way is an investment in building local food systems as transformative partnerships, which over time build the skills, knowledge, know-how and markets that enable them to self-organise and sustain themselves, generating benefits for all participating partners.” 

Brokering in fast moving partnerships: A Digital Promise case study: Chelsea Waite

Fitting pace & style: How many partnerships start in a rush? Process & frameworks are appreciated & needed, however it doesn’t always play out that way. Here, the author took a resource from the Partnership Brokers Training Level 1 and adapted it to her working context.

Building competencies for co-creative partnering for local, adaptive development: Marisa Vojta

Organisations across the sectors must adapt their systems and processes, as well as their staff skills and competencies to become better partners if they want to remain relevant in the development space. Developing partnership brokering competencies in staff can change development practitioners’ mind-set from service- or solution-delivery to meaningful co-creation through facilitation of participatory processes.

Working with development giants – a brokers dilemma: Kenze Ndamukenze

Starting a complex partnership coordinator role with a key question: “What to do now?” – the importance of taking the time to understand the role of the coordinator – both with a partnership broker lens, and also through the eyes of the partners.

Exploring partnership culture – the partnership brokers role: Surinder Hundal

A greater understanding, awareness and sensitivity to organisational culture among organisations seeking to partner can increase their chances of partnering effectively. It also helps partnership brokers. They observe behaviours and group dynamics at work in the day-to-day life of the emerging partnership. Understanding a partnership in terms of its emerging organisational culture and in relation to the organisational culture of the partners creates an opportunity for partnership brokers to make practical and tactful interventions where required. Ethnographic approaches can be useful in understanding cultural dimensions of the partnering process.

 

Quick links

To view this issue, alongside the Editorial, and also past issues: https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/journal/

To find out how to contribute an article: https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/contribute-to-the-journal/

To subscribe to receive future issues: http://partnershipbrokers.us7.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=2db7a18f80d8c273e1dd07b49&id=748efdc7f6

Have a question? let us know: info@partnershipbrokers.org

 

 

 

Partnerships in the 21st Century: opportunities, challenges and the future

PBA’s Ros Tennyson  delivered a keynote speech this week at the ICVA annual conference, and here are the highlights.

To learn more about ICVA please visit their website: https://icvanetwork.org/

 

Power & Politics: the second installment of the Start Network story now published

Following on from ‘Dealing with Paradox’, ‘Power & Politics: The Consortium-building Story continues’ is now published. This is the second piece in the story of the consortium:

” Over a year has passed since the publication of the first case study and it is time for a re-visit. That it has been turbulent is clear – a great deal has happened and the picture is now, in some ways, very different…………

There is no doubt that there are exciting, possibly turbulent, definitely ambitious and potentially innovative times ahead. With so many internal and external factors in play, not even the most far-sighted can know whether the inherent paradoxes will prove insurmountable or will… continue to give the Consortium the challenge it needs to re-frame the game and make a serious difference to those that need it most”

Read the full piece here: https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/learning/

The first case study is also posted on the link above.

Six key themes for successful collaboration in 2015

Based on the conversations of the 2014 Usual Suspects festival, the organisers* have created a hit list of themes for collaboration:

  • Power & dynamics
  • Collaborative skills & competencies
  • Mobilising ‘hidden’ collaborators
  • Creating accessible platforms
  • Leadership & resilience
  • Scaling great collaborations

 

Read more here: http://www.collaboratei.com/news/the-unusual-suspects-festival-building-a-coalition-of-collaborators-in-2015.aspx

*Collaborate, SIX, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Call for abstracts – Betwixt & Between

The next issue of Betwixt & Between – the  journal of partnership brokering – comes out in May and we welcome your abstracts.

For details on how – please visit the contribute page.

We are looking for articles from practitioners – be it frontline experience or conceptual frameworks. You don’t have to be an alumni of the Partnership Brokers Association to contribute – we welcome abstracts from all those working in this field.

If you are interested in contributing to the journal we invite your abstract by 28 February 2015. If you would like to contact us to discuss your piece, please email us. To view past issues of the journal: https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/journal/.

The humanitarian sector through the eyes of partnership brokers – Betwixt & Between issue 4 out now

Issue 4 of Betwixt & Between – the journal of partnership brokering – is out now. It is a special issue focusing on the humanitarian sector, and has articles covering the following:

  • Hard-earned lessons for putting the partnership principles into practice
  • The servant leadership approach and humanitarian collaboration
  • Passing on the mantle of humanitarian collaboration across generations
  • Develloping a soft humanitarian field – improving doing and being through creative partnership brokering
  • Supporting civilian protection as humanitarian action – a brokering experience from the DRC
  • Value for money in partnerships – a challenge to partnership brokers

Read the full articles here

To contribute to the journal click here. The next issue is an open issue.

The humanitarian partnership broker as change agent

A new blog by Catherine Russ on the Humanitarian Practice Network talks through the barriers to effective partnerships and their management, and what a new approach may look like. The skilling-up of partnership brokers could assist the evolution in building partnerships that are fit for purpose in complex environments. This requires a new way of looking at funding and supporting partnerships.

“What is needed is an approach that fosters and embeds a partnering mindset and creates conditions of trust, creativity and innovation – all increasingly essential conditions for finding integrated solutions to complex problems and building legitimacy and buy-in from all partners for sustained systemic change.”

Read the blog here

 

Brokering local collaboration – latest publication

We are pleased to share the latest publication – Brokering Local Collaboration – looking at the impact of training World Vision staff at the local level in partnership brokering skills. Focused on World Vision’s local programme for child well-being, this inquiry was developed jointly between World Vision and PBA.

To read the publication click here

To read more publications by the Association, please click here

Call for abstracts – Betwixt & Between – Issue 3

The next issue of Betwixt & Between – the  journal of partnership brokering – comes out in May and we welcome your abstracts.

This next issue is completely open – for any burning topics and developments in the profession that you would like to contribute to the brokering community.

Download the details here

We are looking for articles from practitioners in all these areas – be it frontline experience or conceptual frameworks. You don’t have to be an alumni of the Partnership Brokers Association to contribute – we welcome abstracts from all those working in this field.

If you are interested in contributing to the journal we invite your article by 1st March 2014. If you would like to contact us to discuss your piece, please email us. To view past issues of the journal: https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/journal/

Social Enterprise World Forum 2013

The 2013 Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF) will bring together 1,200 individuals from more than 30 countries and speakers from more than 20 countries.  Attendees will come from diverse backgrounds – social enterprise practitioners from all sectors, traditional non-profits, for-profit businesses, philanthropists, intrapreneurs, the public sector, support agencies, funders and investors, consultants, indigenous groups, and students – but all share a dedication to resolving the world’s most complex and confounding social challenges.

And moderating will be our very own Development Director Ros Tennyson – Culture Shock: Engaging others in your success: You are pushing the advancement of society on key issues such as empowering the disenfranchised; helping not-for-profits make money; and/or bringing together diverse – and at times at odd – groups such as for-profits and environmental groups.  For some, these trends have paradigm-shifting implications. How do you make sure they are ready for and willing to engage in your success?

For more information, go to the SWEF site: http://www.socialenterpriseworldforum.org/

And for the top 5 reasons to attend – be persuaded here: http://www.jsdaw.com/5-reasons-why-sewf-2013-is-the-must-attend-conference/#more-2071

 

Evaluation of Australia’s School Business Community Partnership Brokers program

Educating young people is the responsibility of the entire community, not just schools. In order to realise this collective responsibility, there is an increasing focus on Australian schools developing partnerships with business and the broader community.

It is within this context that the Australian Government established the School Business Community Partnership Brokers (Partnership Brokers) program to build partnerships that support young people to reach their full educational and social potential. The program commenced in 2010 and is delivered by a national network of Partnership Broker organisations operating in 107 regions across Australia.

Partnership Brokers are currently supporting over 2000 partnerships involving more than 5000 partner organisations. While these numbers indicate a growing culture of partnering between schools and their communities, the numbers alone don’t tell us much about the impact of the Partnership Brokers program and the benefits these partnerships are delivering.

Within this context, Social Ventures Australia was commissioned to undertake a Social Return on Investment (SROI) analysis of five Partnership Broker regions. SROI is a framework that provides an internationally recognised methodology to measure the social, economic and environmental impact of an organisation or program, such as the Partnership Brokers program. Attached is the summary report – an overview of the evaluation process and key findings.

To download further documents related to this evaluation (the approach, and regional outcomes) visit the Department of Education, Employment & Workplace Relations website

For more information about the Partnership Brokers program visit the Youth Attainment and Transitions website

Breakthrough in building practical knowledge on partnership brokering – first issue of new journal out now

The Partnership Brokers Association is proud to bring you the first issue of ‘Betwixt & Between: the journal of partnership brokering’. The journal is the platform for stories from partnership brokers everywhere – bringing together insights into practice, thought leadership and critical analysis.

This first issue sees contributions from graduates of PBA’s international training programme, and those beyond.  Covering themes as diverse as partnership brokering in: local content partnerships in conflicted areas; adding value to social inclusion; and collective impact in the water sector, to the importance of carefully chosen language, intermediary mechanisms and their role in collaborative action between the humanitarian and private sectors, and how being an introvert or extrovert has an influence on a partnership brokers approach to their work.

We hope you find something in this journal that matters to your partnership brokering practice. And if so, that you will be compelled to add your own voice – the next issue, and the partnership brokering community, awaits it.

https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/journal/