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“Human Resources Framework: Partnerships” Program Transcript

ANDREA INGRAM: Partnerships are a real key to the success of real active community organizations. And I find that at my organization, there are all sorts of collaborations that we can have. And they range from very informal arrangements with different organizations and community groups, to very formal relationships and agreements, where we have written agreements, where we spell out roles and responsibilities. You spell out how to deal with conflict between organizations; you spell out the resources and supervision, and things like that.

In the programs that we have that are partnerships, there are various kinds of advantages. It's a way to stretch our resources so that we can serve so many more people. When you have a good partnership with another agency, we also share expertise.

Maurice, can you tell us about a partnership that your organization has that works for you?

MAURICE WILLIAMS: Yes. First, let me say that how we knew that we weren't in fact having the types of partnerships that we needed is because the organizations we were working with previously weren't meeting our needs. And so it became clear to me that it is an evident difference between sending out referrals to other agencies to provide services for our youth that we couldn't provide, as opposed to actually partnering with organizations who could really meet our needs, as well as we would meet their's.

A prime example, we had a therapist who I noticed was coming to all of our meetings that we would have for our children to go over their goals. He would always show up to every one of the meetings, as opposed to the other therapists who we would contract out with. So he called me about six months ago and said, "Hey, Maurice, I have teamed up with a psychologist and a psychiatrist. We're going to open this group practice that will provide individual family therapy, group therapy to clients. We would love for the Williams Life Center to become a part of that." We set up a presentation for him to come in and do a presentation to our executive director and the remainder of the administrative staff. They loved it.

And so from that point, we started sending referrals to them. They came out, did intakes, and before you knew it, here we were with 10 to 15 clients given to this group practice that they had begun. And it was important, because we were able to already see the type of work they were doing. They were phenomenal.

And so that to me as a program director was a key distinction between partnerships, as opposed to just sending out referrals, just getting other people to provide a service that we don't currently provide through our organization.

ANDREA INGRAM: I think you make a really good point that really successful partnerships are based on relationships.

MAURICE WILLIAMS: Yes they are.

ANDREA INGRAM: It's based on person to person, and that's how it starts. Because you have to trust each other, you have to have confidence in each other, you have to share the same values, you have to share the same mission. Holly, from a funder's perspective, what are your thoughts about partnership?

HOLLY HOEY: Well, let me start by saying-- and we know this-- that not one entity can do it alone. Government, foundations, individuals, the nonprofit sector, the private sector, they can't do it alone. We cannot really affect social change individually. So partnerships and collaboration are critical. And United Way's mission is to mobilize the community to improve people's lives. So in our mission statement is mobilizing the community, and that's how we do it-- by partnerships and collaboration.

And we use data and information at United Way that we have of our own, and we determine what are the most pressing needs, where are the gaps in our community? So basically we send out an RFP-- a request for proposal. We ask the community to apply for funding, and to make sure it aligns with our mission, and our core values, and the gaps that we have discovered in our community.

And then we fund these agencies. And it really is this partnership. An organization can't be everything to everybody, right? You want to be a great organization, and so you really want to focus on what's your value proposition, what are you really great at, and stick to it. And then leverage the talents and the resources from other organizations to then fill those gaps and fulfill the mission.

And I think that it's also important to talk about what if a partnership fails? It happens in every organization, and it's happened at United Way where we had clear expectations, and maybe the organization that we were funding is taking a different direction. What we do is, we have a very open communication with them, and then we have a transition period. And our team will work with the organization to transition, and to help them figure out, again, if they're going in a different direction. So I think it's important to have that in mind when you're going into a partnership, that, "What if this doesn't work"-- to always have that conversation.

MAURICE WILLIAMS: I think to prevent partnerships from failing, you have to be clear up front about what are your expectations of our organization, and if we can in fact meet those expectations, and if we can't, then let's modify some of the expectations that you guys have. And that's what we were able to do. We just

had an instance where the partnership developed kind of accidentally, because I sent my recruiter out into the community-- you have to go into the community.

And with our budget cuts and things happening around what types of monies we're going to be able to have to fund what we're really trying to do, we actually can develop partnerships that don't cost us anything. And so she's out in the community, and she's trying to solicit foster parents from this sorority. There's another lady there saying, "Wow, we're developing this community initiative where we're going to work with many of the youth in your area. We want to teach them resume building, we want to teach them how to search for jobs, how to interview."

And so from that came, "Well, we're having this big forum coming up next week, we want you guys to participate." I called the president of that organization, I said, "Listen, some of the seminars that you're requesting that we bring our youth to, we're not going to be able to come. But it was a way for us to really clearly define what it is you expect from us, and what it is that we expect from you."

Remember, they want something from you just as we want something from them. And it may not always be money or funding, but it's participation and it's support, and we have to let them know what we can support, and what we can't.

ANDREA INGRAM: You know, I think it's a good thing to talk about how do we avoid failure, and how do we ensure success is another way to look at it. And there was a time when human service agencies, nonprofits, did not really promote partnerships. So this is really the last 10 and 15 years, so there's been a learning curve.

And I think some of the challenges that have occurred, and that you really need to work hard to avoid, are things like turf battles, who does what, who supervises whom-- as you said, Holly, nobody knows everything, everyone brings something else to the table. So I think involving everyone in the planning process, involving everyone in conflict resolution-- because conflicts could arise-- and being clear, as you said, about roles and responsibility.

We have another very important partnership at Grassroots, which is our mobile crisis team. We go out with the police on psychiatric emergencies, family crisis, and traumatic deaths in the communities-- accidents and things like that-- and this is a partnership with an organization called Humanim. And so it's a very blended team. It is such a blended staff that sometimes I have to think, "Is that a Grassroots person, is that Humanim?"

And it really started in that vein because of the way we developed the program, which is a person from the other organization and myself, we planned it together from nothing. And also bringing in the police as partners from the very beginning. And you know what, it was fun. It's my experience that successful partnerships

are really based on respect, and relationships, and working together, and sharing common goals, and shared vision.