Cross-Sector Partnerships 101 for National Guild of Community Arts Education National Conference!
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Cross-sector partnerships can help arts education organizations achieve goals and impact far beyond anything they can accomplish on their own. We'll be exploring the structures and behaviors that support a partnership's success at the National Guild for Community Arts Education Conference, on Friday, November 21, 2014 from 2-3:30 pm PT.
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Cross-Sector Partnerships 101 for National Guild of Community Arts Education National Conference!
- 1. CROSS-SECTOR PARTNERSHIPS 101: STRUCTURING YOUR CROSS-SECTOR PARTNERSHIP SO IT CAN SUPPORT YOUR SUCCESS Alison Gold Manager of Leadership Education, Presidio Institute For the National Guild of Community Arts Education National Conference Friday, November 21, 2014, 2-3:30 pm @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector
- 2. Today’s Agenda 1. Ideation Exercise 2. A framework on cross-sector partnerships 3. Individual Exercise: Shaping your Partnership’s Structure 4. Wrap Up! @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 2
- 3. Ideation Exercise 1. What has worked well in cross-sector partnerships you have participated in in the past? 2. What hasn’t worked in cross-sector partnerships you participated in in the past? @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 3
- 4. @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector Popcorn! What ideas stood out for you on the idea board? 4
- 5. Why are we talking about cross-sector partnerships? @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 5
- 7. What model of cross-sector partnership should you be using? (Beta Version) Partners Community Who changes views, behaviors, policies, or funding flows, etc. Collective Impact Pay for Success Shared Value Public-Private Partnership Sponsorship All partners No partners Who benefits
- 8. Co-blab-oration vs. Collaboration Co-blab-oration Collaboration Focused on assigning blame or @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector Source: Chris Thompson’s Regional Physics Blog http://regionalphysics.blogspot.com/2013/11/coblaboration-vs-collaboration-for.html taking credit Focused on outcomes Stakeholders participate to protect Stakeholders participate to generate value Opinions rule Data is king Talk exceeds action Actions emerge from engagement Informal process Intentional, rigorous process 8
- 9. Result @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 9
- 11. Representatives @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 11
- 12. Representatives & Structure 12 @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector
- 13. The Bermuda Triangle @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector Result Charge Level of Intervention 13
- 14. Cross-Sector Partnership Bermuda Triangle Matrix of Alignment and Misalignment Result Charge Level of Intervention Alignment? General Thinking Program/Project Delivery Aligned General Thinking Systems Change Misaligned General Doing Program/Project Delivery Aligned General Doing Systems Change Misaligned General Thinking & Doing Program/Project Delivery Aligned General Thinking & Doing Systems Change Misaligned Specific Thinking Program/Project Delivery Misaligned Specific Thinking Systems Change Misaligned Specific Doing Program/Project Delivery Aligned Specific Doing Systems Change Misaligned Specific Thinking & Doing Program/Project Delivery Aligned Specific Thinking & Doing Systems Change Aligned Shaded boxes indicate crux of misalignment
- 15. Trust Building & Maintenance Cycle @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 15
- 17. Accounting for differences in… Power Authority Expertise @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 17
- 18. @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector Exercise: Shaping Your Cross-Sector Partnership’s Structure 18
- 19. @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector Popcorn! What’s one insight you had while doing the exercise? 19
- 20. 3 Closing Thoughts 1. Collaboration, not co-blab-oration 2. There’s no recipe, you’re going to have to develop one that works for your context and goals. 3. Your partnership is more likely to succeed if you’re clear about results, and intentional about structure, representatives (and their differences), vision, accountability, trust, & problem-solving. @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 20
- 21. @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 21 Resources & Trainings • Resources on cross-sector partnerships: livingcities.org/work/cross-sector-partnerships • Trainings on cross-sector leadership: institute.presidio.gov
- 22. Say hello! Ask a question! Share a story! Alison Gold Manager of Leadership Education The Presidio Institute Phone: (415) 561-5477 Email: agold@presidiotrust.gov Web: institute.presidio.gov Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/AlisonGold @AKGold11 @PresidioInst #xsector 22
Editor's Notes
- I’m excited to be here. I’ve done work with Cross-Sector Partnerships working in cities, often related to issues of poverty—workforce, health, homelessness. So, I’m really excited to be here with you and see how partnerships are working (and maybe aren’t) in a slightly different space. Anecdote about the Greater Washington Health Care Workforce Alliance One story, of a partnership working on achieving one result, in one place. And if you walk away from these sessions knowing three things I hope that it’s: 1. Cross-sector partnerships are really different than organizations. Whereas organizations are clear about who’s in charge, and employees can’t just stop showing up and be considered part of an organization, these things are muddier in cross-sector partnerships. And thus they need to be structured and behave differently if they are going to be successful. 2. There’s no right way to build a partnership—I can’t give you a recipe. It’s dependent on the place and the people and culture and the problem that you’re trying to solve and the result you’re trying to achieve. 3. There are structural and behavioral things, that if you embed them into your partnership, they will help support your success. So, I think this session is really about introducing you to those, and generating possible ways that site teams could take home and try out to see if it works to get their partnership to the place where it does have trust, it does have a problem-solving orientation.
- This break out session is really an interactive workshop. We’ll do some exercises together, and individually. And I’ll share some things to think about based on research I undertook at Living Cities. But, I’m here to support your learning and success, so I encourage questions along the way!
- DIRECTIONS: Take 5 minutes and on the sticky notes in front of you, write down at least 5 answers—1 per sticky--to each of the questions below. When you are done, take your sticky notes to the wall, and take a couple of minutes to see what others wrote. (10 minutes) If your idea is similar to someone else’s, put your sticky note near theirs. If you like someone else’s idea, star it and keep it in mind!
- Popcorn Questions This is a facilitation technique where the facilitator asks participants a barrage of questions, seeking short-quick answers, rather than long-winded responses. Popcorn questions are a good technique to get ideas flowing, to encourage wider participation from members of the group who are less likely to speak up and to build energy as a big group at the beginning of a session.
- Complex social and economic problems are not the product of one sector, but of complex systems made up of actors and institutions from across sectors. As a result, solving these problems is dependent on these actors and institutions working together. Building a cross-sector partnership where there is trust, resilience, and an ongoing commitment to problem-solving – the kind of cross-sector partnerships necessary to achieve their goals – is really hard work. And while while there aren’t graduate programs in it (yet) there are other examples and people to learn from.
- The term cross-sector partnership is often used to describe an array of activities involving representatives from multiple sectors. These diverse activities have all been labeled with the term “cross-sector partnership” not because they share strategies or goals, but rather because of who is involved with them: representatives from two or more sectors including business, government, nonprofits, philanthropy, labor, and/or communities. Often, partnerships are viewed like Noah’s Ark, you need 2 of every animal! We’d like to offer a different way to think about the membership of cross-sector partnerships, which we call the interest-based frame. Instead of thinking about these efforts as alliances of organizations that require representation from different sectors, they should be thought of as alliances of organizations that together have a role in solving a problem and achieving a shared goal. Example
- In addition to using the interest-based frame to help you identify who should be involved in your work, it also is a useful tool to help you think about what model of cross-sector partnership you should be employing. So, this is something that I think is really important to point out—there are many models of cross-sector partnership. Some have been named and described—like collective impact (which you heard about from Jen Juster when you got together in SF) and some haven’t. But, we’ve been thinking a lot about what distinguishes these models—and there are many things—but two have jumped out that I want you to keep in mind today. How much the partners have to change their own behavior And where the benefit of achieving the result accrues.
- No matter the model of cross-sector collaboration you’re employing, it can be done well or not not (as we saw during the ideation exercise). Once you’re partnership is starting to come together, there are two ways that things can go. And I think that our ideation exercise really reflects the difference between these two concepts: Co-blab-oration vs. Collaboration. I love this idea—and I stole this chart from a guy named Chris Thompson who is helping build the capacity of folks in Northeast Ohio to take on complex social and economic problems. So, by a show of hands, how many folks have been in a meeting that you’d characterize as co-blaboration? That’s a lot of us. That’s a lot of the experience and not-so-great-associations and mindset, that your cross-sector partnership is going to have to overcome, reset, or set up differently. And your cross-sector partnership is the place you can do it. So, we’re going to run through a couple of ideas and strategies. These are patterns and behaviors that we’ve seen in other cross-sector partnerships which if you are conscious of from the beginning, are going to make the work a lot stronger in the long run.
- Focused on outcomes!
- As the chart tells us, one of the hallmarks of collaboration is having an “intentional, rigorous process” and that starts with the structure of your partnership. We’ve observed that collective impact efforts seem to be showing greater progress when they build formal structures. That is the arrangement of and relations between stakeholders with established procedures as well as articulated, differentiated roles and commitments. Formal structures are codified through tools like operating documents, memoranda of understanding, contracts, or other documentation.
- Another difference between coblaboration and collaboration, is that in the latter Stakeholders participate to generate value The ability of a collective impact effort to make progress toward its result is interconnected with the stature and power of individuals within their own organizations and communities who are serving as representatives to the cross-sector partnership. We’ve identified three different types of representatives: designees, individuals who represent the organization or community, but do not have decision-making or implementation powers within their organization or community; doers, individuals who are responsible for implementing changes to behaviors and strategies in their organization or community, but lack the formal authority to mandate them; and decision-makers, individuals who have the authority or influence in their organization or community to require that it change its behaviors and strategies. We’re learning that it’s important for collective impact efforts to engage all three types of representatives.
- But, as anyone who’s planned a wedding or another big event knows—there’s a lot of thinking about how people need to be organized in your structure that will help you achieve your goal. And this is an important framework that we’re going to build upon throughout the day. At a wedding the goal is fun, but in our work, it’s how we need to organize ourselves so that people with rifts don’t sit together, and people who life eachother do. The vision and accountability for the event is set by the folks with authority—those getting married, those paying for it. But at every wedding I’ve been to, the newlyweds, and their parents, and even members of the wedding party are circulating to make sure that vendors on top of things and that everyone is having fun, and that problems are solved. I bring this up, not because I’m a big proponent of the wedding industrial complex, but because this is a great example of how we need to think about how we plug representatives with the right levels of authority and expertise into the structure in the right way. You wouldn’t have a distant cousin who no one has seen in years be in charge of anything. Similarly, you wouldn’t put the CEO of a major player in the system you’re trying to transform at a table with a bunch of designees.
- So, as you think about your structure, think about how it’s going to support the cross-sector partnership’s ability to be effective at taking on the work. And at the core of this, is the Bermuda triangle You might be thinking, that’s not the Bermuda Triangle, the Bermuda Triangle is a place in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. And I would say, yes, you are very right. But this is the Bermuda Triangle of Cross-Sector Partnerships Because without getting these three traits into alignment, we’ve seen many cross-sector partnership’s ability to have impact mysteriously disappear.
- What does alignment look like? Collective Impact is a model of cross-sector partnership that is focused on systems change. And fortunately for you, there is only 1 way that these three traits are in alignment when that’s a cross-sector partnership’s level of intervention. What do I mean by systems change? Your level of intervention is systems change--to intervene and reorient the set of behaviors, interactions, projects and programs in an existing system (or systems) in order to achieve your specific result. Result—is specific like the one you’ve been working on all morning. Your Charge—or what job that your cross-sector partnership has been hired to do is thinking & doing, which is when a cross-sector partnership works to develop a course of action through learning and experimentation.
- Trust is an important and underestimated ingredient to making a cross-sector partnership work. If members of a cross-sector partnership do not believe in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of their partners as well as the partnership itself, it is very difficult to achieve the partnership’s intended goals. Through our investments and research we’re learning that Tuckman's Group Development Model -- you might be more familiar with the terms form-storm-norm-perform In our research and grantee portfolio, we’ve observed that there’s a common trap that partnerships fall into relating to trust: they try to go straight from forming to performing. This research has also revealed that undertaking the storming and norming processes actually leads to performing sooner and more effectively than if you skip from forming to performing – a phenomenon we call the form-perform paradox. If you skip the storming and norming, the phases that establish trust and boundaries and clarity and consensus, it’s very difficult to perform successfully. Addressing conflict and building trust—while difficult—are necessary prerequisites to being able to implement the work.
- Similar to building and maintaining trust, problem-solving is a necessary behavior that cross-sector partnerships must practice to advance their work. In reality, though, we’ve observed that almost all partnerships are strong in some stages of the cycle and weaker in others. The tough work that the partnership has to do is to build the muscles and practices so that it is able to exhibit all the problem-solving cycle behaviors strongly. So what are these muscles and practices: Problem-defining—what do we think is wrong? (these are assumptions or hypotheses that you are testing Interpreting & hypothesizing—what do we need to change? Solution-finding-implementing potential solutions Analyzing & reflecting—determining if these solutions are reflective? And if not, what does this tell us about how we defined the problem? One pattern we’ve observed in all types of cross-sector partnerships is weak “analyzing & reflecting” behaviors. It seems that relatively few partnerships have applied their time and intellectual rigor to determining if solutions are effective; if so, how they can be improved; and how that insight feeds back into their understanding of the problem they are trying to address. This behavior is imperative for the work of cross-sector partnerships implementing the principles of collective impact, because analyzing and reflecting are the foundation for continuous improvement.
- So this one is a bit different than the other pieces, but it is something we’re beginning to explore more in our work. In a cross-sector partnership, the reality is that you are going to have representatives with different levels of power, authority, and expertise. Some of the work of the partnership might be to help build expertise, or authority, but there will be many decisions that get made within the partnership where these differences in power, authority & expertise mean that it will require different levels of involvement in the decision-making process. This could be a whole 3 hour session unto itself, but I wanted to bring it up, to get you thinking about this. Because it begs 2 questions: -how will your partnership figure out the appropriate level of involvement in decision-making? -who decides what that level is given any particular decision? So, I just threw a lot of ideas at you, and now I want you to wrestle with it in your team. But before we do that, I want to see if there are any questions.
- You will have ~25 minutes to work on this exercise which will focus on mapping out a structure, talking through how it will support the behaviors and alignments I just shared, where representatives plug in. Your are empowered to choose if you want to use this exercise to start building your cross-sector partnership structure from scratch, or build on the existing structure you already have. There might be things that you don’t have the answer to yet. Don’t worry—this is a chance to identify those things. Please capture them as questions, or even take time as a group to do some brainstorming about potential ideas. Even if you know where something will get done, but you’re looking for ideas of how to do it, write it down as a question! Don’t forget to write things down!
- Popcorn Questions This is a facilitation technique where the facilitator asks participants a barrage of questions, seeking short-quick answers, rather than long-winded responses. Popcorn questions are a good technique to get ideas flowing, to encourage wider participation from members of the group who are less likely to speak up and to build energy as a big group at the beginning of a session.
- Invitation to participate in this work as we continue to learn and develop the tools that staff and participants need to do this work.