Cross Border Opportunities Project  

What kind of partnership?

This section offers ways of thinking about partnerships:

1. Five levels of partnership involvement.
2. Common statements and questions to ask.
3. Three different perspectives on partnership.

Five levels of partnership involvement

The key issue is what stance or attitude you take if you are an organisation initiating or managing a process of participation or partnership building. There are possibly five levels which offer increasing degrees of control to the others involved (see Figure 2). There is no right way and wrong way – it depends on what you are doing and the situation you are faced with.

Figure 2

(David Wilcox 2000)

1. Information: The least you can do is tell people what is planned!

2. Consultation: You identify the problems, offer a number of options, and listen to the feedback you get.

3. Deciding together:You encourage others to provide some additional ideas and options, and join in deciding the best way forward.

4. Acting together:Not only do different interests decide together what is best, but they form a partnership to carry it out.

5. Supporting independent community initiatives: You help others do what they want perhaps within a framework of grants, advice and support provided by the resource holder.

The 'lower' levels of participation keep control with the initiator but they lead to less commitment from others. Partnership operates at the levels of ‘Deciding Together’ and ‘Acting Together’.

Information is essential for all participation but is not participatory in itself. This model suggests that not everyone will wish to be as involved as everyone else. It depends on how important the issue or project is to them. How involved people are may also vary over time.

If you are engaging with a partnership:

• Where are you on the ladder– what is on offer?
• If you are starting a partnership, what influence are you offering others?

Common Statements

Here are some of the things you may hear (or say) and some questions to ask.

(Who in the community? What influence/power will they have? What help will they get?)

(Does everyone want to/need to be involved? Perhaps some people want more involvement than others?)

• “We want one or two representatives”.

(Why not use other ways to help other people be involved?)

• “We don’t have time to involve more people”.

(Why not have a planning weekend or other event with a facilitator?)

• “We really value the volunteers and activists”.

(Why don’t you give them more help and do things in ways they can understand?)

Remember

Partnerships need partners – and people with some shared gaols and values.

Partnerships are about relationships, and need trust in order to work.

Three ways of looking at partnerships

The ‘three-bubble’ diagram above can be used to look at partnerships through three different perspectives:

1. The ‘business’ that the partnership is doing – the projects and the funding necessary to achieve its goals. Also the paperwork and jargon that can be baffling to anyone trying to engage with the partnership.

2. The structure that binds the partners together, expressed in a constitution or agreement, meetings and procedures.

3. The people involved. All too often we forget that people differ in personality type, and ways in which they prefer to communicate and work.

• Some people love ‘blue skies’ thinking, others the practical details.
• Some can digest lengthy reports, others prefer a diagram.
• Some people may revel in committee work, while others are much better at the essential networking that goes on between formal events.

Looking at partnerships like this helps emphasise that we need all three elements.

• People and a structure can end up as a talking shop if they don’t have projects, a plan and some resources.
• People with great ideas and funding need to get organised.
• And it is no good having great plans, funds and a constitution if you don’t have people with the necessary skills and confidence.