The Partnership Brokers Association

We’re delighted to be running Partnership Brokers Training in Geneva again,  8 – 11 November 2022. Please download a brochure, or contact our Training Manger for more information.

Our new Partnership Brokers Training: Online (Europe-Africa-Asia timezones) will run 17 January – 23 February 2023

This course is for active and experienced practitioners involved in the management and development of multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Drawing on global experience and designed to appeal to all types of learners from diverse sectors, this course balances conceptual and practical learning. The course is a blend of approaches, mixing online and off-line content, individual and group work, facilitated and self-managed learning, tapping into your creative and brainy capacities.

Download the brochure and apply online.

It provides:

• A framework for creating robust, efficient and impactful partnerships
• A focus on critical partnership principles, to drive values-based partnerships for stronger results
• Unique, fit for purpose tools and techniques for brokering partnerships that get results
• Enhanced confidence and competence as a partnership practitioner
• Deeper understanding of professional partnership management (‘brokering’)
• Space for reflection on your partnering experiences
• A safe space for you to experiment and explore new ideas
• Strategies to overcome common and complex partnership challenges
• Personal and professional insights that build competencies to support successful partnerships
• Access to a vibrant global network of over 4,000 alumni and an opportunity to join as a professional member of the Association

View all of our courses worldwide on our Training Page.

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.

The Certificate in Brokering Partnerships Remotely is a five week course delivered online. If you are a partnership practitioner operating remotely and you would like to: explore the issue; build insights and confidence; develop practical approaches suitable for your context and earn a CERTIFICATE in Brokering Partnerships Remotely, you are welcome to join one of the upcoming cohorts:

• Americas cohort: 14 October – 12 November
• Europe, Africa, Middle East & South Asia cohort: 21 October – 18 November
  
• Oceania & South Asia cohort – week of 19 October – 16 November 2020

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

PBA is delighted to announce the publication of Shaping Sustainable Change: The role of partnership brokering in optimising collaborative action. The idea of writing the book was first discussed in 2014 and, a year later, was given impetus by the positioning of multi-actor partnerships as central to the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, increasing attention was being paid to the role played by individuals and organisations who acted as ‘boundary spanners’ and ‘bridge-builders’ for these relationships. Shaping Sustainable Change aims to make the case for partnership brokering and share information on this emerging profession. In order to offer a useful blend of theory and practice, the book combines the knowledge and experience of PBA’s international network of associates and alumni with perspectives from wider literature and the academic arena. The first section explores the profile and key activities carried out by partnership brokers, and the skills and competencies required to undertake this role. This is followed by examples of partnership brokering practice in relation to different contexts, sectors, themes and partnering phases. The process of compiling the publication has involved a committed group of authors, peer reviewers, editors and proofreaders to whom we are immensely grateful. We hope that the book does justice to the work of partnership brokers everywhere and reinforces the importance of their contribution to building transformational collaborative arrangements for a more equitable and sustainable world.

You can purchase your copy here.

Our next Partnership Brokers Training course in London, UK, will be held on 23^rd – 26^th October 2018. Please go to our training programme page for the course brochure and application form.

Following the success of last year’s Geneva PBT course, the World Economic Forum will host the PBT course once again on 30-31 October and 1-2 November 2018. The course brochure and application form are available on our training programme page.

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.

Applications now open for Partnership Brokers Training 4-day training course for those brokering multi-agency collaboration in the humanitarian sector.

“The course was highly applicable to the type of work I do with consortia and networks, and the kind of challenges I am faced with on a day-to-day basis. The material was relevant and helped give perspective to those challenges. The course also enabled the participants to step back and reflect on our own work in relation to what we were learning. I really appreciated the whole experience and went back to my role energised and ready for action.” Rachel Houghton, CDAC Network

Dates: 13-14 and 16-17 January 2014, London. The training is run in association with the Start Network, CDAC Network, and the Humanitarian and Leadership Academy.

Due to limited space, you are advised to get your application in promptly to avoid disappointment. The deadline for applications is 02 December 2013. Click here for some brief information. For more details and application information: https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/training/level-1/

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

Over the last few years Microsoft has invested significantly in partnering capacity building. It chose to specifically focus on partnership brokering due to the fact that those fronting Microsoft partnerships were very often taking on the dual role of Microsoft representative to the partnership whilst also driving the partnering process forward to help it to add value to all parties.

“We believe the results are significant—for our employees,our partnerships, our business and wider society—but we wanted to be sure…hence this enquiry.”

The Partnership Brokers Association has completed an enquiry piece to look at the value the training has brought to the company. We hope you find the report useful, stimulating, and above all valuable, to building the picture of  the value of partnership brokering to an organisations partnering approach.

Download the report here

In collaboration with Microsoft, PBA has run Partnership Brokers Training in Malta. Bringing together 18 practitioners from business, academia, government, NGO and inter-govenmental sectors, lead Trainer Greg Butler says “The skills these leaders are developing can be directly applied to advance partnerships aimed at improving support for teachers and students’ education and learning.”

Click here for the news from the Times of Malta. Download the news article here.

The first Partnership Brokers training Level 1 took place in the Netherlands in June 2012, hosted by NCDO.

17 Participants completed this 4-day  training. The course took place in a wonderful space – very much appreciated by all the participants! – in the city centre of Amsterdam. As one of the participants commented ‘although it is right in the heart of Amsterdam it feels like a quiet and perfect place to learn and reflect’.

This first Dutch group had a mixed back ground with people from government, businesses, NGO’s and  some social entrepeneurs. Most participants expected to learn more on structuring and understanding partnerships and to gain tools on how to build and manage partnerships. Throughout the week people commented that it was a ‘rich and high quality course’ and gave them ‘lots of food for thought’. People also felt that this course was ‘exactly what they needed’, and was ‘a great mix of theory, practice and reflection’.

The group has established a LinkedIn group to keep sharing experiences and knowledge (partnership brokers).

The next Amsterdam Partnership Brokers Training Level 1 will take place on 26, 27, 29, 30 November 2012, with plans developing for May 2013 and November 2013. More information is on the Level 1 page: https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/training/level-1/

NCDO is a Dutch expertise and advisory centre for global citizenship and international cooperation. NCDO carries out research, provides information and advice, stimulates public debate and is actively involved in the field of training and education.