This article is an interesting resource for organizations or people thinking about partnerships. It outlines the two different types of partners, strategic and enabling. Strategic partners are more formal and take on more rights and responsibilities, whereas enabling partners are more relaxed and have more verbal agreements. This article also gives lots of worksheets filled with questions to make sure that you or the organization is truly ready and in a good spot to think about partnering with another person, organization or company. There are many benefits to partnering with someone else; however there are also many negatives that can come from partnering with the wrong person or organization, or partnering at the wrong time. If you are thinking about partnering with someone this is an article you need to read prior to committing to that partnership.
After reading the article I realized that there is a lot more to partnering than I ever thought. I always thought that if you knew someone else with similar interests and wanted to reach a common goal, you would get together and talk about what your two organizations could do to reach that common goal and then proceed with reaching that goal. Little did I know there are many more things to do and think about even before you start thinking about partnering, or ask someone else to partner with you. Relationships can make or break a partnership. If you do not start and continue having great relationships throughout your partnership the partnership will most likely fail, and both partners will go their separate ways. Communication is definitely a big part of a good relationship and partnership. If the two organizations cannot communicate effectively, they will not get anything done and probably be very frustrated with the other partner. A good way to keep good communication and have good relationships is to have fun. If people are not having fun they will not be happy, and the organizations will suffer. Retreats and risk sharing are just two ideas the article shares for creating good relationships and having good communication. This article is great for anyone, but especially community developers because usually the funding for community development is not a huge amount, if any, and therefore other people, organizations and corporations are needed to help achieve the community’s goal. This is a huge benefit for the community as well because it gets people involved and wanting to make that difference. Having people in the community be partners for the community development project can be difficult and a risk, but if done properly it can have huge benefits. There are too many questions you should ask yourself before partnering; this article has a ton of worksheets and suggestions to help anyone make the decision of partnering or who with. This is an article I will keep close by whenever I am doing any programming, community developing, or anything relating to partnerships.
Cool article!! I'll be sure to read it before we start our facilitation group projects later in the semester for this class ;) hehe.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was cool how a lot of the advice you shared from the article about partnerships could be applied to any sort of joining relationship, whether it's two organizations or a man and woman getting married. Neat-o! Good review!
I like this article because it promotes the idea of spreading knowledge. Not everyone has the same background and experience, by creating partnerships it is possible to get mutual benefits and for both organizations to become more successful as a result. It appears from your review that it takes a great deal of consideration before you jump into a professional partnership, which I definitely agree with. The wrong partnership could destroy your credibility. I like that this article reinforces the value of communication, this is a skill that so few people do well, it is a good reminder that there is always room for personal growth.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article! I never knew so much about developing partnerships either! You learn something new everyday i guess..
ReplyDeleteI agree with how important relationships are in building communities. If there aren't proper relationships with effective communication, the community will most likely not survive!
There are a lot of factors to consider while forming a partnership! Great article Jen, it was really smart of you to choose this one as it will help you in the future. You explained the tools needed to form a healthy partnership really well, ex. communication is key! Nice post Jen, very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting article. I definitely think that relationships need to be a large focus in community development, projects and any part of life. I especial agree that fun is a necessity. I think that the positivity that comes from a fun environment relaxes people and can easily lead to other things like communication and bringing people together when they come from different backgrounds. Well done Jen! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat job on emphasizing on how important relationships are when developing a community. Bring each individual in the community is a must and you did a great job explaining that.
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