The Partnership Brokers Association

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

We are running a Level 1 training in Wellington in October – all details here: https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/training/level-1/

We are working with Thought Partners and Inspiring Communities. The training is 20 -23 October 2015.

Action Against Hunger are recruiting for 5 Regional Learning Advisors: http://www.acfin-hr.net/jobs/positions.php?hq=18&id=1258&lang=EN

Deadline for applications is May 10 2015.

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/

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.

This new publication tells the story of the CDAC Network (Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities). From initial meetings through to the first Members Council, it charts the journey of the Networks formative years.

“What shines through is Network Members’ passion and commitment to ensuring that communicating with disaster affected communities becomes a consistent, resourced and predictable element of humanitarian preparedness and response, and their commitment to the CDAC Network as an important vehicle and voice in propelling this agenda forward.”

Click here to access the publication from the CDAC Network site.

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

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/.

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.

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

The partnership at the heart of this case study is from a project funded by the Government of Canada, managed by Agriteam. The project was designed to build skills in negotiation to enable stronger participation in law making and development planning amongst stakeholders in two locations in Burma / Myanmar as a contribution to the country’s transition from conflict and authoritarianism to democracy.

The work took place over the course of 7 months, and the case study was designed to be a mechanism for recording the process of collaboration. This was in terms of both the programme’s partnership structure and its collaborative delivery model in a country where voluntary collaboration has, until recently, been strictly confined to Buddhist charity.

Its focus was collaboration in action at the strategic, operational and community levels. The content was compiled by all 4 partners: Agriteam, Institute for International Development, The Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation and the Partnership Brokers Association, and was collated and structured in this case study format by PBA.

We hope this study is of use to those working in complex collaborative projects. Our desire is that this contributes to practitioners learning about collaboration – about the process, the relationships, the challenges and the potential for a new way of working.

Download the case study

2014 kicked off with a flying start for PBA, bringing on both changes in the Board, and the appointment of 2 Development Directors.

The PBA Board has grown from 4 to 6. One of our original Board members– Kwasi A. Boateng has stepped down from the Board due to time commitments and to provide the opportunity for others to contribute their experience as Board Members to this ‘wonderful organisation’ (his words, not ours!). Kwasi will remain on the Members Council and an active alumnus of the organisation.We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Kwasi for his steadying presence and spirited support of PBA’s establishment and growth.

The January board meeting confirmed the appointment of 3 new Board Members.  This is in line with PBA’s drive to bring in a wealth of experience and fresh ideas to take forward our plans as a fit for purpose, small yet robust organisation. The 3 individuals are all alumni of the organisation, and come from very different backgrounds: Sam Aiboni works for Shell in Nigeria, Ian Dixon is the founding Director of Dixon Partnering Solutions and hosts the training in Australia. Marieke Hounjet is with Start Network in London. See the Governance page for a short biography of each Board Member.

In addition to strengthening the PBA Board, we have appointed 2 new Development Directors to carry forward our training and learning work.

The new Development Director for Training is Julie Mundy. With over 20 years of experience in international development, Julie has been working as an independent partnerships specialist and with PBA for many years, as a trainer and mentor with practitioners, but also as a sound advisor to PBA in its transition over the last few years. Julie is based in Australia.

Leda Stott joins us as the Development Director for Learning. Leda has been involved in partnership brokering work for many years, and has worked with us as a mentor since the beginning of the Level 2 Accreditation course. Leda is based in Spain and has an impressive track record in research and teaching about partnerships and research methodology (at EOI Business School and the Technical University of Madrid in Spain  and Oxford Brookes in the UK). She has most recently worked with us to develop the new Level 2 Research Certificate.

Julie and Leda join Ros Tennyson as Development Director of Strategy. We are very much looking forward to expanding the internationally based team, and implementing our plans over the course of the next year.

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

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/