Making Collaborative Partnerships Work
The last edition of Platform discussed the growing emergence of formal partnerships between multiple jurisdictions, non-profit groups and philanthropy to promote equitable, sustainable development. Longstanding collaborative partnerships focused on growth management - such as Envision Utah and the Treasure Valley Partnership in Boise, ID - have been more recently joined by efforts focused specifically on maximizing the community and economic benefits of transit investments without displacing vulnerable communities. Growth management, community development, economic development, housing, transportation, energy and infrastructure are all fields that require unique expertise, and that have thus been necessarily divided. But it is increasingly evident that no jurisdiction, discipline, organization, or funding source will singlehandedly achieve regional sustainability.
The partnership between the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Department of Transportation (DOT), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has provided national leadership in creating multidisciplinary partnerships. HUD’s Office of Sustainable Communities’ Community Challenge and Regional Planning grantees throughout the country have mirrored this partnership with multijurisdictional collaborations of their own. But as any of these grantees will tell you, collaboration sounds good on paper but is surprisingly difficult and time consuming to accomplish in reality. Fortunately, we can learn from the successes and failures of longstanding collaborative efforts. Below is a sampling of lessons learned for those embarking on new partnerships around the country.
Lay out a collective vision, challenges to be addressed, and opportunities to be leveraged
A partnership is coming together to do something that no one participating organization can do alone. Since each partner will view shared issues from a different perspective, there may be disagreements on particular details of a given policy or approach. Keep focused on the ultimate outcome and looking beyond differences to the challenges that can be collectively addressed.
Some examples of vision, challenge, and opportunity statements can be found here:
The Challenge of Great Communities http://ractod.org/oJJzNF
Work towards specific activities and priorities
Part of the reason the nation has experienced an uptick in the number of regional partnerships focused on sustainability is the growth of transit investments around which partners can specifically coalesce. A partnership that is coming together only because it “seems like a good idea” is not going to last. Establishing a set of concrete activities that make sense for the collaboration, and capitalizes on the respective expertise and skill set each partner brings to the table, will help ensure success. But don’t try to take on too much at once; start with a strategic plan that identifies key short-, mid- and long-term activities and possible funding sources for these activities. These specific activities might include:
- Honing in on 3 to 4 station areas to collectively advocate for greater inclusion of density, innovative transportation investments, and/or affordable housing.
- Pushing for greater investment in sustainability programs by the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), local city, or transit agency.
- Identifying communities along a planned transit line whose residents or businesses could be vulnerable to transit construction or operation, and helping these communities with stabilization efforts.
Once key partnership activities are identified, it may be prudent to revisit who is included in the partnership, and whether other groups should be invited to effectively engage in activities.
“Making the Case” can be a solid first activity to pursue
What is it that motivates partners to come to the table? What is it that could motivate others to support the partnership? Create a fact-driven document that articulates how investments in transit, sustainability, and affordable housing could help address the core issues facing your region.
These issues may be different from region to region. Housing affordability, economic competitiveness, air quality, natural resource preservation, and planning for major demographic change are all issues that have motivated different regions to support sustainable planning and investments in transit and growth management. By laying out the data that supports the partnership’s vision, policymakers will have an easier time substantiating their sustainable choices as well.
Figure out how your partnership will be governed
Each existing partnership around the country has a different structure for allocating funding, making decisions, and staffing. Before implementing the priority activities, it will be important to establish a structure that works for the partnership.
Consider financial opportunities and constraints, and individual time commitments given the set of activities to be pursued. If there is funding going to the partnership as an entity, who will be the fiscal agent and how will decisions be made about its allocation? How many groups will be involved and will some groups be more core to decision-making than others?
Once the partnership is up and running with one decision-making structure, establish a time to revisit how things operate to make sure the model is working. It may be that one organization takes the lead in fiscal management, staffing, and decision-making early on, but considers their leadership role to be temporary until other entities are ready to take on greater involvement. Existing partnerships have changed their governance models from time to time to adapt to changing conditions.
