There's an increasing amount of talk about "working in partnership" - so much, in fact, that it's sometimes difficult to be clear about what this means. What for example is the difference between a "partner" and a "stakeholder"? Is there a difference between "working in partnership" and simply “working together”?
MACC is increasingly involved in supporting "working in partnership" at a number of levels. Much of the rest of this website talks about Strategic Partnerships - where the focus in on the statutory and voluntary sectors thinking and planning together at a city-wide level.
More and more voluntary sector organisations are getting into Delivery Partnerships - which is about organisations agreeing to work together to deliver their activities or services. The reasons for this are obvious: being stronger by joining forces, sharing benefits and sharing risks. This is different from simply working alongside each other.
• Clear shared aims
• Identified shared benefits
• Incentives to promote co-operation
• Disincentives for failure to co-operate
• Sharing confidential information
• Pooling resources (money, people, skills, ideas, etc.)
There are many forms such partnerships can take - a formal merger of one organisation into another is just one option. Nottingham Council for Voluntary Service have published a very easy to use workbook on developing partnerships between organisations. You can download it below
• A practical guide to working with partnerships (PDF)
For more formal arrangements, key sources of guidance on strategy and structure are:
• Working in a consortium (Office of the Third Sector, 2008). See Appendix D in particular.
• Collaborate Resource Kit (Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust - HACT).
• Twelve Golden Rules for Tendering as Consortium (Tendering for Care)
Although the Collaborate Resource Kit is intended for a different commissioning context, it is widely applicable, especially:
• Collaborate Worksheet 2: Large/small partnerships and Collaborate Worksheet 3: Consortia (strategy issues);
• Collaborate Worksheet 6: Legal Issues (structures).
Worksheet 2, for example, considers key issues like exclusive versus non-exclusive relationships between partners.
NCVO offers brief guidance on Due Diligence supplemented by a more detailed publication for sale: Due Diligence Demystified.
The Charity Commission has a number of key documents which can be accessed from its Collaborative working and mergers resources page, including Collaborative Working and Mergers (CC34) and various checklists.