The capacity to communicate progress, celebrate success, encourage patience when needed, and allow for flexibility as the collaboration progresses
WHY IT MATTERS: Communicating progress toward goals, as well as recognizing when to adapt to changing circumstances, new information, and shifting priorities, allows the collaboration to maintain engagement and momentum.
Encouraging patience among collaboration partners.
Collaborations often take longer than expected, in part because partners must work in ways that take into account the practices and priorities of other sectors. The collaboration can encourage patience among partners by communicating progress and celebrating success, which instills confidence and commitment. Partners can do this by beginning meetings with progress updates, by sending reports of progress to partners on a regular basis, by organizing an event to celebrate the achievement of a milestone, or by seeking external opportunities (e.g. via media outlets, external stakeholder meetings, etc.) to share interim achievements.
Adapting to change.
Maintaining a willingness to shift strategy is crucial in cross-sector collaboration, as collaborations must grapple with changing priorities of partners, funders, and other key stakeholders; wrestle with changing political environments; and more. The most effective collaborations are also open to new, unexpected information that gives them a more accurate picture of the issue they aim to address; and are periodically evaluating interim indicators to assess whether they are on track to accomplish their goals—both activities that may suggest the need for a strategy shift. If the collaboration is overly rigid in pursuing a previously agreed upon strategy, it may risk losing key partners, resources, or influence, or may ultimately pursue a project, program, or policy that new information suggests will not be effective. To create an environment in which partners and their stakeholders are flexible to changes in strategy, the collaboration should focus on clearly communicating how the change influences the collaboration’s ability to achieve its goals. If the collaboration has effectively communicated past progress and worked to inspire confidence in its practices, structure, and past choices, partners will be more likely to trust the need to shift course, rather than seeing such a shift as a failure of planning.
“Transforming the Largest Public Housing Development in New Orleans”
The Bayou District Foundation (BDF) located in New Orleans has overseen the construction of more than 685 mixed- income housing units, early childhood education facilities, a K-8 charter school, recreational facilities, and a mobile health clinic. Because the redevelopment project was at such a large scale and primarily dependent upon government funding, progress was slow at times. Turnover at government agencies also caused delays and frustration. But the BDF worked to build patience among partners and the community through open communication. The board was responsive and constructive, employing a two-pronged approach to keeping residents updated on the progress of the redevelopment and to ensuring that disagreements would not derail progress: group meetings to bring all stakeholders together in an open, transparent environment and individual meetings to address issues that arose throughout the process. BDF also held monthly meetings with the New Orleans Housing Authority and Columbia Residential, the property developer, and regular meetings with community support service organizations and other partners. Board members held 60 public meetings that covered important issues related to the project, offered detailed explanations to the community about their work with government agencies and partners to redevelop the St. Bernard’s Public Housing Development, established community rules within the housing development, and served as a way to openly share ideas and discuss issues. Each public meeting included a project update and presentation by one of the project partners to address a specific area of redevelopment. The BDF collaborated with partners in preparing for these presentations, setting aside ample time for meaningful feedback and to address specific concerns. Through patience and open communication, the BDF maintained a high level of engagement among its partners and was able to garner strong community support by keeping residents informed of all project developments.
“Evaluating Collaboratives: Reaching the Potential” from University of Wisconsin- Cooperative Extension
Especially see discussion of Milestones and Critical Events on pp. 31-33, which provides helpful guidance and checklists for identifying milestones to be celebrated as signs of progress. Also see discussion of Levels of Outcomes on pp. 113-117, which includes a helpful explanation of interim or precursor outcomes and the role of these in communicating progress and ensuring the collaboration is on track. “Evaluating Collaboratives” is a comprehensive resource for evaluating multi-stakeholder processes.
“Adaptive Planning Toolkit” from Spark Policy Institute
This resource provides helpful discussion of the differences between traditional planning processes and planning processes that are appropriate for complicated problems. Adaptive planning encourages continuous learning and an openness to shifting strategy over the course of a project based on changing circumstances, new information, and shifting priorities.
“Partnership Development Toolkit” from the European Commission
Especially see pp. 43-47 for discussion of monitoring the gap between the partnership’s intentions and its accomplishments — both to keep the partnership on track and to communicate progress or the need to change course to partners and stakeholders. While not all templates in this section are relevant to all collaborations, Template 7: Quarterly Monitoring Record on p. 45 provides a useful framework for assessing progress. The “Partnership Development Toolkit” is a guide for facilitators of EQUAL Development Partnerships (DPs) but is easily adaptable to partners in a wide variety of issues.
“Talking the Walk” from The Partnering Initiative
Especially see Tool 3: Needs Analysis for Individual Partners on p. 74 for guidance on assessing partnering organizations’ communications practices and needs, as well as those of its internal and external stakeholders. We suggest partners use this information to guide them in communicating progress in a way that is valuable to the differing stakeholder groups of each partner.
The capacity to communicate progress, celebrate success, encourage patience when needed, and allow for flexibility as the collaboration progresses
WHY IT MATTERS: Communicating progress toward goals, as well as recognizing when to adapt to changing circumstances, new information, and shifting priorities, allows the collaboration to maintain engagement and momentum.
Encouraging patience among collaboration partners.
Collaborations often take longer than expected, in part because partners must work in ways that take into account the practices and priorities of other sectors. The collaboration can encourage patience among partners by communicating progress and celebrating success, which instills confidence and commitment. Partners can do this by beginning meetings with progress updates, by sending reports of progress to partners on a regular basis, by organizing an event to celebrate the achievement of a milestone, or by seeking external opportunities (e.g. via media outlets, external stakeholder meetings, etc.) to share interim achievements.
Adapting to change.
Maintaining a willingness to shift strategy is crucial in cross-sector collaboration, as collaborations must grapple with changing priorities of partners, funders, and other key stakeholders; wrestle with changing political environments; and more. The most effective collaborations are also open to new, unexpected information that gives them a more accurate picture of the issue they aim to address; and are periodically evaluating interim indicators to assess whether they are on track to accomplish their goals—both activities that may suggest the need for a strategy shift. If the collaboration is overly rigid in pursuing a previously agreed upon strategy, it may risk losing key partners, resources, or influence, or may ultimately pursue a project, program, or policy that new information suggests will not be effective. To create an environment in which partners and their stakeholders are flexible to changes in strategy, the collaboration should focus on clearly communicating how the change influences the collaboration’s ability to achieve its goals. If the collaboration has effectively communicated past progress and worked to inspire confidence in its practices, structure, and past choices, partners will be more likely to trust the need to shift course, rather than seeing such a shift as a failure of planning.
“Transforming the Largest Public Housing Development in New Orleans”
The Bayou District Foundation (BDF) located in New Orleans has overseen the construction of more than 685 mixed- income housing units, early childhood education facilities, a K-8 charter school, recreational facilities, and a mobile health clinic. Because the redevelopment project was at such a large scale and primarily dependent upon government funding, progress was slow at times. Turnover at government agencies also caused delays and frustration. But the BDF worked to build patience among partners and the community through open communication. The board was responsive and constructive, employing a two-pronged approach to keeping residents updated on the progress of the redevelopment and to ensuring that disagreements would not derail progress: group meetings to bring all stakeholders together in an open, transparent environment and individual meetings to address issues that arose throughout the process. BDF also held monthly meetings with the New Orleans Housing Authority and Columbia Residential, the property developer, and regular meetings with community support service organizations and other partners. Board members held 60 public meetings that covered important issues related to the project, offered detailed explanations to the community about their work with government agencies and partners to redevelop the St. Bernard’s Public Housing Development, established community rules within the housing development, and served as a way to openly share ideas and discuss issues. Each public meeting included a project update and presentation by one of the project partners to address a specific area of redevelopment. The BDF collaborated with partners in preparing for these presentations, setting aside ample time for meaningful feedback and to address specific concerns. Through patience and open communication, the BDF maintained a high level of engagement among its partners and was able to garner strong community support by keeping residents informed of all project developments.
“Evaluating Collaboratives: Reaching the Potential” from University of Wisconsin- Cooperative Extension
Especially see discussion of Milestones and Critical Events on pp. 31-33, which provides helpful guidance and checklists for identifying milestones to be celebrated as signs of progress. Also see discussion of Levels of Outcomes on pp. 113-117, which includes a helpful explanation of interim or precursor outcomes and the role of these in communicating progress and ensuring the collaboration is on track. “Evaluating Collaboratives” is a comprehensive resource for evaluating multi-stakeholder processes.
“Adaptive Planning Toolkit” from Spark Policy Institute
This resource provides helpful discussion of the differences between traditional planning processes and planning processes that are appropriate for complicated problems. Adaptive planning encourages continuous learning and an openness to shifting strategy over the course of a project based on changing circumstances, new information, and shifting priorities.
“Partnership Development Toolkit” from the European Commission
Especially see pp. 43-47 for discussion of monitoring the gap between the partnership’s intentions and its accomplishments — both to keep the partnership on track and to communicate progress or the need to change course to partners and stakeholders. While not all templates in this section are relevant to all collaborations, Template 7: Quarterly Monitoring Record on p. 45 provides a useful framework for assessing progress. The “Partnership Development Toolkit” is a guide for facilitators of EQUAL Development Partnerships (DPs) but is easily adaptable to partners in a wide variety of issues.
“Talking the Walk” from The Partnering Initiative
Especially see Tool 3: Needs Analysis for Individual Partners on p. 74 for guidance on assessing partnering organizations’ communications practices and needs, as well as those of its internal and external stakeholders. We suggest partners use this information to guide them in communicating progress in a way that is valuable to the differing stakeholder groups of each partner.