When life
gives you scraps, make a quilt.
We talk a
lot about working with other organizations in order to avoid duplication
and share resources. Then when we have an opportunity to collaborate
we drag our feet. Why? Maybe we tried it once and had a bad experience.
We were forced to work with someone who was not trustworthy. They
took all of the credit for successes and we got all of the blame
for any problems.
You can find
a dozen reasons NOT to collaborate with other organizations. If
you are not really sincere about wanting to collaborate, better
to admit it and leave this module until you really need to do
it.
LEARNING
OBJECTIVES
After finishing
this module you should be able to:
1. List 5
reasons for and against working with another organization.
2. Describe 5 "degrees" of coordination between two
organizations.
3. Describe a process for implementing coordinated programs.
4. Make a sincere effort for coordinating an educational program
with another organization.
OPTIONAL
EXERCISE:
If you are
not really certain about interorganizational coordination maybe
you need to clarify your own thoughts. Work with a partner or
a learning group to list the potential advantages and disadvantages
of working with other organizations to accomplish an educational
program. See if you can list 10 reasons on each side of the issue.
DEGREE
OF COORDINATION
Agreeing
to collaborate with another organization does not necessarily
mean "all or nothing." Note the following degrees of
coordination.
1. No Coordination
(no activity nor desire to work with the other organization even
though they may provide similar programs).
2. Low Degree
of Coordination
a) informal
and infrequent contacts between individuals
b) exchange
of general information to keep each other informed
c) clients
are referred to the other organization when it can better respond
to the clients' particular needs.
3. Moderate
Degree of Coordination
a) formal
exchange of information (planned joint meetings, exchange of
newsletters, annual report, meeting agendas)
b) exchange
of personal and resources for particular programs
c) joint
projects or programs.
4. High Degree
of Coordination
a) written
agreements or contracts
b) joint
budgets
c) same
(or overlapping) boards of directors
d) joint
ownership (of building, offices, equipment).
5. Merger
(the two organizations become one).
This list
should give you some ideas about coordination with another organization.
This list of degrees of coordination, however, does not tell you
how to work together to get to a preferred degree of coordination.
That comes from a process which we will examine next.
PROCESS
FOR IMPLEMENTING COORDINATED PROGRAMS
1. Identify
the area (i.e., program) to be impacted.
2. See if
the other organization is willing to discuss a coordinated program.
3. Carefully
and thoroughly define the needs of each organization and the potential
problems that each organization might encounter.
4. At this
point each of the organizations needs to independently determine
that the opportunities are important enough and the potential
problems are small enough to proceed in discussions.
5. For each
of the problems, specify optional solutions. Agree on the best
solution for both organizations for each problem.
6. Examine
resources and agree on who provides what.
7. Write
goals and objectives.
8. Incorporate
the answers to 5, 6, and 7 into a plan which tells Who does What
by When.
9. Each organization
should study the plan and approve it or amend it and continue
with the planning until joint agreement is reached.
10. Joint
agreement should be formalized by signing the plan or a memorandum
of understanding that states why and how the agencies will coordinate
their efforts. This document can be a very simple one- page document
or it can be a legal contract which anticipates possible eventualities
that are not addressed in the plan.
11. Both
organizations should agree on situations where each may need to
abandon the effort to coordination. Worst case scenarios are better
discussed in advance (privately) than dealt with in the middle
of program implementation (publicly).
12. Follow
the plan (or the agreement).
QUESTIONS
FOR DISCUSSION
1. Which
organizations have similar programs and interests as yours?
2. Which
organization would be easiest (and most beneficial) to coordinate
a program with your organization?
3. Would
coordination benefit your program and theirs?
4. What problems
might your organization (and theirs) encounter?
5. What benefits
might be anticipated with a successfully coordinated program?
6. What would
be the worst case scenario? How would you deal with it?
EXERCISE:
Work with
a partner in your organization to answer the questions above and
anticipate the outline of an agreement with another organization
for a joint program.
If the plan
looks good, get a general approval from your organization's decision
makers to actually try it--to enter discussions with the other
organization. Determine who to contact in the other organization
and follow the steps of the process outlined above.
