Community Partnership Building

• Partnerships with groups can strengthen the assistance and support to communities.
• These partnerships involve monitored agreements between the community and partners.
• This lesson highlights the significance, processes, and methods of building partnerships, and the approaches needed for success.

Learning Objectives

• Define partnership building and its significance in the community
• Identify the processes, methods, and approaches in community partnership building
• Understand the challenges in partnership building between the community and local groups

Partnership Building

• Partnership building is how a community can develop its programs, activities, and infrastructure with assistance.
• Assistance comes from a network of organizations, individuals, or local groups
• Partner groups, individuals, and organizations support communities in planning and organizing efforts.
• Active participation will motivate more community members.
• Partnership building involves responsibilities for both the community and its partners
• Responsibilities include regular meetings, forming a core group, monitoring progress, and liquidating finances.

Processes in Partnership Building

• Forming a partnership involves cooperation; both parties should share a common goal and coordinate to ensure success.
• Connect with leaders of the preferred local group partner to promote engagement
• The mindset, values, and goals of the community and partner organization should align
• Leaders should reach out to organizations and provide proposals on how a partnership can contribute to goals
• Once accepted, set expectations in an agreement.
• Parties prioritize and identify goals
• Objectives and goals for a shared program should be clearly defined to share the mindset
• Parties should collect data and assess the community's needs to ensure matching programs.
• Expectations and standards should be set on working, sharing, allocating resources, and monitoring progress,
• Be transparent when problem solving and always maintain open lines of communication.
• Organize the community and deliver services
• Community and partner organizations should organize resources for implementation.
• Identify key personnel, brief program recipients, and organize their participation
• Councils may be created for consultation for improvements
• Community groups and volunteers are tapped to deliver services when more workforce is needed.
• Monitor and maintain progress of shared programs and projects
• Community leaders and partners are responsible for monitoring and maintaining programs and actions.
• Regularly evaluate if the set standards meet needs of the community and are relevant
• Present to meet the community's demands and goals
• Build new partnerships and strengthen the established ones.
• Community leaders should be visible in partnership programs, participating in meetings, integrating contributions, and open to feedback.
• Community partnership organizations have facilitators managing relations between the organization and community
• Community leaders should keep in touch with the assigned facilitators for select programs
• New partnerships can strengthen the existing ones or tackle different societal issues in the same community.
• Partnerships can cover different societal issues and areas to meet needs
• The community can partner with livelihood groups to provide community members means to earn a living
• Leaders can reach out to professional medical organizations for medical and health needs.

Methods in Partnership Building with Local Groups

• It consists of forming collaborative relationships with other organizations
• These relationships depend on the shared interests manifested in community programs and projects
• Parties ensure that preparatory processes and standards are upheld before a program or action starts

Advocacy

• Focuses on changing public policies, submitting legislation, or implementing programs
• Includes expressing views on issues, providing access to information and services.
• Defending the rights of minorities and the less fortunate, and exploring options to resolve societal issues.
• A community may collaborate with an organization sharing the same concern
• If natural disasters or environmental problems plague the community, environmental partnership programs can help.

Promotion

• Raises public awareness regarding an issue and incorporates public education initiatives
• Advances causes, aims, and ventures that support community partnerships with other groups
• A community can create partnerships with cultural organizations that promote cultural sights.
• Promoting culture provides a livelihood to members while protecting the community's attractions.

Program Development

• Augments the community's expertise and its partners to create new programs and actions that advance a specific issue
• It expands and improves plans, programs, and actions with partner help
• Education organizations can help a community generate programs to resolve educational issues

Approaches in Partnership Building With Local Groups

• Since many types of communities exist, organizations use varied approaches to achieve a program's success.
• Leaders may suggest previous strategies
• It helps develop their partnership with the community and gain positive feedback from community members

Stakeholder Consultation or Participation

• It relates to the local government's mandate and existing laws and regulations; the local government oversees decision-making
• Government receives input, feedback, and advice from its partners in plan formulation, but the local government is mainly responsible for implementing and monitoring the program

Collaboration or Partnership

• Used as a model for community sustainability plans
• It involves more engagement from organizations and local group partners
• It includes a more collaborative and strategic decision-making process, incorporating the ideas of both partners, and involves the local group partners in the implementation process
• The involved parties make commitments to mutual goals and delegated tasks.
• This approach may also include local government considerations and community-wide concerns beyond the local government's authority.

Wrap Up

• Partnership building ensures the community has a counterpart in planning and organizing its programs and actions
• Steps include connecting with leaders, identifying and prioritizing goals, organizing community, monitoring programs, and building new partnerships
• The methods of partnership building with local groups are advocacy, promotion, and program development,
• Approaches in partnership building with local groups are stakeholder consultation or participation and collaboration or partnership.