The Partnership Brokers Association

At PBA we examine and explore partnership brokering through various lenses. One of them is the Art & Science lens. In this edition of “Stories from Practice” we present a paper related to visual-art meditation.

Meditation describes different mind-body practices that help cultivate clarity and calm independent of circumstances. Nepal-based Accreditation alumni and PBA Associate PRAJWAL SHAHI shares his experiences with a visual-art meditation technique and describes how it benefited his reflective practice and work as partnership broker.

„This paper explores the need for and value of meditative steps in reflective practice. It shows how a structured tool, such as Zentangles, can even focus on frameworks used in partnership brokering. One of the paper’s central themes is “learning is ever-evolving.” The author reflects on and re-engineers his problem-solving skills as Partnership Broker by using meditative art. For him it was an indispensable practice during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, where many had to learn how to do business differently. This journey has inspired him to deconstruct the partnership brokering framework using meditative art, to expand his understanding of it and to apply it creatively in a partnering context.“

Read Prajwal’s art-inspiring paper here and share about your reflective practices on Twitter and LinkedIn.

In this edition of Stories from Practice we look at the question of transactional and transformational collaboration.

PBA accredited partnership broker ANNELIES CLAESSENS invites us to glimpse into the professional world of an internal partnership broker in an Alliance setting.

She explores ways of looking at added value, transformation and evolution of a complex partnership, and shares her reflections on helping partners move across the collaboration continuum. Annelies’ paper offers an excellent analysis of how collaboration can be both transactional and transformational, as well as an analysis of drivers and approaches to collaboration in the humanitarian sector.

“Imagine accepting the challenge of supporting a partnership of 15 Dutch aid agencies and the Netherlands Ministry of Affairs in moving from ‘transactional’ to ‘transformative’. I found out along the way that this process is not linear but that fluidity between different concept and processes is key. This article describes how an internal broker can assist in finding appropriate decision-making processes for managing such an alliance, whilst being accountable and vulnerable. To co-create, adopt and model the results of the alliance, the internal broker should pivot between providing traditional leadership and encouraging collaborative leadership of the individual organisations.”

Read Annelies’ thought-provoking paper here and tell us about your experiences on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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)

In 2020 PBA worked on a research on principles and partnerships in conflict setting in South Sudan and Nigeria. The research was commissioned by a coalition of organisations – Caritas Norway, DanChurchAid (DCA), Kindernothilfe (KNH), Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) and Dutch Relief Alliance (DRA).
Below you can find four key messages derived from the research and actions to be taken. For the the full report “Towards principled humanitarian action in conflict contexts. Understanding the role of partnerships” follow this link.

Download: Messages on Principles and Partnership in Conflict Setting (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.

Our first feature in the 2021 Stories from Practice series presents a paper on self-assessment and measuring the value of a partnership broker’s role and work.

The PBA Accreditation journey invited US-based BETHANY CRAIG to take an evidence-based approach to her performance as an internal partnership broker for the American Red Cross.

Assessing her effectiveness to understand how her role is contributing to better partnering outcomes was pivotal for strengthening capacity building across the organisation.

“This paper analyses how the process of reflection informed the approaches to design and test a framework for assessing the effectiveness of partnership brokering. As an internal partnership broker for the American Red Cross one of the author’s key responsibilities focused on building the capacity of colleagues to collaborate well with external partners. The paper examines how understanding one’s own capacities and how the process of partnership brokering is effectively adding value is positively impacting organisational learning.”

Bethany’s paper offers an excellent example of developing a practical tool that internal brokers can use to measure the effectiveness and impact of their collaborative work.

Download the paper here and let’s hear about your evaluation approaches. How do you make the impact of your partnership brokering role more visible? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

The October edition of Stories from Practice explores how partnership brokering relates to leadership.

Accredited partnership broker STUART KINSELLA from Australia shares an in-depth analysis of leadership qualities and how these qualities are tied to the attributes of partnership brokering. He further outlines how he applied these in his professional practice, and how leadership qualities can nurture the success of a partnership.

“The contribution made by a good partnership broker, particularly an internal partnership broker, can often be overlooked and/or is undervalued. However, there are strong parallels between the qualities demonstrated by a good partnership broker and key attributes of leadership. For example, the best leaders lead through influence, not the power of their position, and they are open to new ideas, criticisms and different perspectives. This paper argues that a good partnership broker has extensive leadership capabilities and can therefore frame their ‘offering’ (ie their skills and expertise) in this context.”

Download Stuart’s paper here. Tell us how you improve and enhance your leadership skills and how this impacts your collaborative work. Twitter @PBA_Brokers using #partnershipbrokers.

Is it true that, ‘It’s much harder to build trust without meeting in person’? Perhaps we have a new opportunity to do ‘business as unusual’ and to disrupt the patterns we found ourselves working in that didn’t feel equitable or effective.
Watch the recording of our third Global Dialogue on Partnership to explore with Catherine Russ, who created the prototype for PBA’s ‘Brokering Partnerships Remotely’ certificate course, the disruptive potential offered by remote dynamics in partnerships. Get motivated to try some new things!

In the September edition of Stories from Practice we invited PBA accredited partnership broker Dulani Sirisena to share her paper with our global community.

Dulani explores the relationship between donors and beneficiaries, and how both sides can move beyond the transactional nature of a funding relationship toward extracting greater value and impact. While not all partners have to be ‘equal’, it is key to seek equity in the partnership.

Dulani provides insights from her own practical experience with DFAT programmes in Sri Lanka and offers pointers as to how mutuality and reciprocity can be achieved. Not least also asking the question, whether to partner with all the consequences of mutuality, reciprocity and sharing risks, costs and benefits, or not to partner and instead focus on providing funds in the most effective way possible.

“In today’s world of complex development challenges, such as the global crisis we are facing right now, it is no longer enough for donors to play a passive role in the development equation. A broader understanding within the development community is required of the value-add a donor can provide beyond funding. This paper shares lessons on common partnering challenges from the Australian Community Rehabilitation Program in Sri Lanka, and the application of key partnering principles to resolve them. It explores the critical role of a bilateral donor in building and supporting effective partnerships.”

Download Dulani Sirisena’s paper here and tell us about your insights on working with donors on Twitter @PBA_Brokers using #partnershipbrokers.

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:

• Global cohort: 21 October – 18 November – course in progress
  
• Oceania & South Asia cohort new dates tbc
• Americas cohort: Spring 2021

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

Our next session of the Global Dialogues on Partnership is on 1 September. Free bookings at: https://bit.ly/scalingpartnerships

Our special guest will be Accredited Partnership Broker, Ian Gray, who will unpack years of experience working with diverse partners, navigating partnerships along the innovation continuum and grappling with questions like:

–  How do you ensure the partnerships are fit for purpose for the right stage

–  What does fit for purpose partnership look like? And what does your approach need to be

– What happens to small start-up innovators, partnering with larger, established organisations, as they move towards scale?

– Scaling: Can you hold it together when partnerships turn from being transformational to being transactional?

Join host Michelle Halse, for this 90 min conversation, to learn from Ian Gray’s vast experience, and share your own experiences and challenges. Perhaps together we can redraw the map of partnering for innovation!

When: 1 September 2020, 12:00 – 13:30 London,  7:00 – 8:30 Ottawa,  8:00 – 9:30 Sao Paulo,  14:00 – 15:30 Nairobi,  16:30 – 18:00 New Delhi,  21:00 – 22:30 Canberra,  23:00 – 0:30 Wellington

Excited about this session? Share it with your networks using this LinkedIn announcement or the registration link https://bit.ly/scalingpartnerships .

About Ian Gray: Ian is the Founder of Gray Dot Catalyst, a strategy, innovation and partnering consultancy. He is an author and speaker who has provided advisory, mentoring, training and facilitation services to over 70 businesses, charities, multilateral organisations and governments. He has brokered and supported numerous innovation partnerships through the different phases of the innovation cycle. Ian is a patented inventor and holds an M.A. (Hons), MSc (Econ), M.B.A. and is currently studying for a PhD in Strategic Innovation. He is an Accredited Partnership Broker, member of the PBA board, and a Fellow of the RSA.

References:

1. Better Together: How startups and the third sector can collaborate (Charlotte Reypens, Christopher Haley, Gwil Purchase; Nesta &Save the Children)
2. Partnerships Review: Humanitarian Innovation Fund (ELRHA)
3. Frameworks for Approaching Collaboration within the Humanitarian Sector (Dan McClure & Hannah Reichardt, Save the Children)

The shift from face-to-face contact to working-remotely has invited all of us to explore how we can continue to collaborate effectively. Investing in the partnering process and bringing presence to the question of what is needed next is as important as before. The difference is, we are asked to create spaces for these processes online and/ or over the phone.

In this edition of Stories from Practice we invited Accreditation alumni Lauren Flaherty to share her paper on communicating in a virtual world. She recently also completed the Brokering Partnerships Remotely course exploring the benefits and challenges of this new paradigm and what it means to use virtual communication more consciously when elements of context, gestures, body language and eye contact are reduced or even removed.

“Are you feeling overwhelmed by the increase in virtual communication? After generations of honing our face-to-face communication skills, we are sophisticated ‘readers’ of others; their meaning, intentions and potential to help, or harm us. The rich nature of traditional communication feeds our need to ‘fill in the blanks’ of what people are saying, reaching deeper into the meaning behind the words. Virtual communication is sterile, and if not used consciously, can lead to misunderstanding, mistrust and conflict. This paper will get you thinking about communication – and how to make the most of virtual communication, while avoiding some of the pitfalls!”

Read Lauren’s paper here let us know what you have learned in your journey of partnering remotely using #partnershipbrokers on Twitter.

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.