Partnering with external or internal organizations is a great lever for many a purpose. Overtime, Wikimedia organizations acquired a vast experience in dealing with other organizations, be it for content donations, training delivery, grants applications, etc. Partnerships was tackled as topic at Wikimedia Conference 2015 in Berlin and a follow-up session took place at Wikimania 2015 in Mexico. To gather the outputs of these two working sessions and make them accessible to anyone in our movement, the following table was designed, with 2 objectives :
encapsulate what needs to be taken into account when dealing with partners (steps, processes, tools)
create a “filter” to address this topic and identify what already exists in our movement, to build on each other’s experience
This is still a work in progress, please feel free to comment/amend! If you’re interested in getting involved in gathering and disseminating partnership management knowledge in our movement, reach out to: Anne-Laure WMFr (talk) 15:41, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You may have - or may have not yet - identify WHY you need to partner with other organisations.
Raising money to fund your action plan, get an easier access to content to enrich Wikimedia projects, jointly answer a call for project, acquire skills your organization lacks …
It might also be that you’re not looking for anyone to partner with but the opportunity arises: how do you handle it?
Start with your own annual plan: What are the priorities for my organization, and (where) do I need help from external parties?
Make a list of possible partners (longlist) regarding the issue/opportunity you’ve identified
Define criteria (alignment, impact, …) to prioritize which actions / partnership you want to move forward with
Case studies, examples, successful stories, impacts & statistics adapted to the type of partner
Glossary?
list of objectives ready (more or less detailed)
This is an empiric and step-by-step process. The first step is for partners to usually slowly get to understand what’s your organization about, what is its role, etc. According to their first contact with someone from your organization, there might be a need to have more / other people on board.
STEP 3: Find common ground to work together
Identify level of alignment in terms of values
Identify mutual interests (be ready to accept the answer “none”)
Identify potential common projects
Assess the ideas with the highest potential
Identify potential obstacles / limitations (e.g. legal things preventing your shared work, …) ⇒ Risk management
Define / negotiate roles and responsibilities (project leaders, project team, sponsor, steering committee, etc. ) for each organization
Think about sustainability overtime
Several counterparts in one single organization
Technical issue when project enabled (database, money, agreement details)
Organizations' charts, Who’s who?
Define communication means in a concrete way
During the whole process, a key question can arise: are volunteers interested in the partnership scope and when should they be involved (this is valid especially for Wikimedia organizations with staff).
STEP 5: Define a formalized executive plan
Prepare project plan with SMART objectives, costs, timeline, roles & staffing
Define the expected output(s) with the partner
Formalise an agreement
Project planning template
Indicators of success (Key Performance Indicators)
