ILT: What are community partnerships?

Community partnerships abound in the professional literature of social work, adult education, basic literacy education, religious or church work and among governing entities to name just a few environments. Partnerships are - in the broadest sense - connections between and among people and groups to share interests, concerns and create visions for the future.

Historically, partnerships have been formed to educate, open discussion and address and solve problems among all parties involved and affected as well as stakeholders in all parts of the problems/issues and solutions.

Partnerships are created when:

there appears to be no one person or group responsible for the issue;
it doesn't seem possible to solve the problem or address the situation by just one group - due to magnitude, lack of knowledge or amorphic nature of the issue;
the cost of solving the problem or addressing the issue is too costly for one group to address; and/or,
it is important to have a large number of people involved to educate and have good buy-in to the process.

The best partnerships are those (either formal or informal) that:

Have an organization or a structure to them.
Have a vision, mission, and goals
Are designed to change as issues evolve and problems are solved
Find ways to involve people face-to-face but make maximum use of emerging and existing technologies
Build in a sustained maximum activity and involvement by stakeholders and other participants
Provide necessary plans such as business plans, marketing plans and communication plans
Promise and produce a product or results which benefits all group/process members
Design an active and interactive initial learning period and maintain ongoing learning for stakeholders and participants
Establish and maintain effective communication and ongoing dialog

Examples of community partnerships

Community Partners & Partnerships Human Resources Development Canada An outstanding resource, this site offers basic partnership information and guides between and among diverse partners in profit and non-profit environments. Following the ALA Information Literacy Community Partnership Assembly review of needs and ideas, this website will create additional documents to aid in local partner programs such as The Partnership Handbook accessible here.

Harvard Family Research Project This list outlines successful partnerships between academic and parent groups and academic, parent organizations and community groups.

National Evaluation Findings Sheets: Community Partnerships
Designed to support health-related issues, this site offers resources specific to health issues but also offers some general information and supporting research data on why partnerships are needed, characteristics of successful partnerships, factors for sustaining partnerships, and barriers to success.

Public Awareness of Family Violence Through Community Partnerships in New Brunswick This older site provides an informative look at solving a recognized problem through partnerships and collaboration.