Resources for Governance

This resource (and others) can be found on the website of Dixon Partnering Solutions.

The document, Adapt and Prosper, looks to overcome complex and intractable issues in order to achieve sustainable change through cross sector partnering.

In the framework of the Millennium Scholarship, Carolyn Parkinson was hosted at the Cambridge & North Dumfries Community Foundation. This report is the result of her research in the area of collaboration among non-profit agencies and between non-profit agencies and businesses. The document includes information about partnerships and collaborations, factors determining success, conflict areas and solutions, as well as information on working with businesses along with an appendix that provides information for possible collaboration agreements.

 

Millions of people use the Community Tool Box each year to get help taking action, teaching, and training others in organizing for community development. Dive in to find help assessing community needs and resources, addressing social determinants of health, engaging stakeholders, action planning, building leadership, improving cultural competency, planning an evaluation, and sustaining your efforts over time.

This resource provides a framework and examples which will deepen understanding on how collaborative relationships develop and evolve, what factors contribute to their substance, and what challenges they face.

Dr. Austin holds the Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. Previously he held the John G. McLean Professorship and the Richard Chapman Professorship. He has been a member of the Harvard University faculty since 1972. He was the Co-Founder and Chair of the HBS Social Enterprise Initiative. For more about Dr. Austin, click here.

An emerging model of governance gaining popularity within the public and community sectors is that of Community Governance. The concept usually refers to community participation, engagement and decision-making in public matters and is related to terms such as local governance, social governance, network governance and participatory governance. This paper provides a review of Australian and international literature related to the concept of community governance to assist understanding of the accumulating and sometimes confusing literature in this field. The paper begins with a workable definition of community governance, provides a discussion of some theoretical and historical aspects of ‘community’ from a community psychology perspective and presents an overview of the distinction between corporate, public and community governance to provide a context to the review. The remainder of the article presents the themes of: models and perspectives, network governance and community and community sector governance. A major conclusion is that community governance, by definition, is about community management and decision making but also implicates the broader aims of addressing community needs and building community capacity and well being.

Imagine for a moment that the United Nations Security Council held its meetings without the use of translators. Imagine leaders from various countries trying to solve challenging problems without understanding clearly what the others are saying. How effective would they be? Isn’t it likely that there would be major misunderstandings that could lead to serious consequences? While this scenario is laughable, many organizations face a similar scenario when they attempt to collaborate with organizations from other sectors—namely the corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors.

To view this resource, click here.

The Eight Steps to Effective Coalition Building is a framework for engaging individuals, organizations and governmental partners in addressing community concerns. The complete document offers concrete steps towards building effective partnerships, and provides tips for making collaborations and partnerships work. Rather than creating new projects or programs, effective coalitions can harness existing resources to develop a unique community approach and achieve results beyond the  scope of one single institution or organization.

Visit the website here.

Effective Community Governance (ECG) is a set of practices that help people and organizations become more effective at improving communities. When community leaders, public and nonprofit managers, and citizens use these practices to their fullest, they not only achieve one-time benefits; they also foster a continual cycle of community renewal and improvement.

Click here to visit the website.

This report is presented in two volumes. Volume I contains the substantive discussion, findings and recommendations. It draws on material provided by councils and community bank branches and by selected individuals who were interviewed for this project. These individuals have had a longstanding involvement in local government or community banking. Volume I also contains a summary of the interviews and interview questions. Volume II contains the literature review which poses a series of questions to do with the theory and practice of community governance. The findings are outlined in the review. It also discusses some of the challenges of applying community governance approaches, international comparisons of the practice of community governance and the experience of local government in Europe.

Fanning the Flame: The CDAC Network – A Movement for Change (2009 – 2014) charts the story of the CDAC Network to date, from the now infamous ‘pub meeting’ in New York in 2009 to the Network’s first Members’ Council in May 2014. It tells the story of the Network’s formative years; a time of forming and storming as the diverse Membership set about building a movement for fundamental change in the way the humanitarian sector operates.

As with all new initiatives the case study also makes clear that there have been, and continue to be, challenges at the heart of our work together. It addresses these challenges head on as it presents both the diverse, and sometimes divergent, viewpoints of those interviewed. 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.

The evaluation guides are a series of evaluation technical assistance tools developed by the CDC Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP) for use by state and local health departments. The guides clarify approaches to and methods of evaluation, provide examples specific to the scope and purpose of health departments, and recommend resources for additional reading. The guides are intended to offer guidance and a consistent definition of terms. The guides are also intended to aid in skill building on a wide range of general evaluation topics while recognizing that health departments differ widely in their experience with, and resources for, program evaluation. The guides supplement existing program guidance and program evaluation documents. As they are developed, guides are posted on the DHDSP Evaluation Resources website. Health department staff are encouraged to provide feedback to the Applied Research and Evaluation Branch on the usefulness of the guides and to suggest additional guide topics.

To view the Evaluation Guide: Fundamentals of Evaluating Partnerships, click here.

Improving Partnership Governance: Using a Network Approach to Evaluate Partnerships in Victoria

Abstract

The Toolkit is a guide to help diagnose, design, implement, and assess successful cross-sector collaborations. While collaborations differ in their goals, scope, and size, practitioners from any sector can use these tools to navigate their challenges.

Access the Toolkit here.

The literature on transparency and trust suggest the two concepts are related. While this idea is logical on its face, would it hold true if measured? Using an instrument that measures both transparency and trust, analysis of employee opinion supports this notion. In particular, organizations that encourage and allow public participation, share substantial information so their publics can make informed decisions, give balanced reports that hold them accountable, and open themselves up to public scrutiny, are more likely to be trusted.

View the full text here.

The Partnering Initiative is an independent non-profit dedicated to unleashing the power of partnership for a prosperous and sustainable future. TPI was founded with a passionate belief that only through collaboration across business, government, NGOs and the UN can we tackle the greatest development and business sustainability challenges.

Visit their website here.

View their article on the partnering cycle and partnering principles here.

View their Partnering Toolbook here.

View their resource on the risks and benefits of partnering here.

View Talking The Walk, a look at the realities of communicating in and about partnership.

 

Who should read this fact sheet?
Companies or individuals becoming involved in partnering arrangements for the first time will find this fact sheet particularly helpful. It is written for a wide audience – clients, contractors, architects, quantity surveyors, in fact anyone involved in the construction process.

Find the fact sheet here.

Partner Relationship Management (PRM)… really is about relationships. Itʹs about understanding the needs of one’s business partners and satisfying those needs to the best of one’s ability while building trust between the two parties. PRM, therefore, is much more complex than collecting data.

An organization must learn to communicate with its partner, using self‐ disclosure skills to articulate its needs. It must know its personal trust strategies and then share those with the partner. The organization must build agreements that are mutually beneficial while working through the conflict that collaboration, by its very nature, causes.

Visit their website here.

Partnership Resource for the Community Arts

This resource is to assist community arts organisations undertaking projects with one or more partners. While it is well documented that partnerships provide multiple benefits, it is also frequently reported that ‘partnerships can be difficult’. This resource aims to address some of the challenges of working in partnerships, as well as highlighting the benefits.

The Partnership Analysis Tool

This resource is for organisations entering into or working in a partnership to assess, monitor and maximise its ongoing effectiveness. It was revised in 2011 to include information on changing organisations and has recently been refreshed for 2016.

Click here to visit the VicHealth website

As pressures on community-based organizations increase and the issues faced by our society become more complex, the idea of cross-organization partnerships can hold much promise. Through partnerships we can contribute our part and also reap the benefits of others’ efforts. We can accelerate learning and distribute skills and knowledge. Also, we can add depth and breadth to our community impact.

In this e-learning lesson you will learn about the typical components found in effective partnerships, the different forms that partnerships can take, the steps to establishing effective partnerships, and how to manage and bring closure to partnerships.

This paper offers a strategic framework for cross-sector partnerships including describing and defining the traits that make up a strong foundation, factors that influence success, and behaviors of high-impact efforts. In addition to the theory, the paper steeps these ideas in four examples of cross-sector partnerships working on different issues, in distinctive ways, in diverse geographies:

Peter Senge suggests that the future of our world rests heavily on our ability to foster collaboration ‘across every imaginable boundary’. Indeed it is hard to imagine the current fragmented approach being able to meet the enormous challenges we face – so collaboration may well be our only option.

Observation of, and research into, a wide range of partnerships over many years suggested that where there was one (or more than one) person acting in the intermediary role, partnerships tended to have deeper engagement, greater focus and more impact. It became increasingly clear that the inter-mediating role was critical – and so the idea (and the terminology) of partnership ‘brokering’ was born.

Read further here.

Local government is working more closely with others, but ignoring a structure and clear goals is dangerous.

Read the full article here.