Collaboration & partnerships

Collaboration and partnership working are ways for more than one organisation to work together to achieve their aims. This is a very normal way of working for some, such as in the construction industry, where many companies and individuals work together with a shared aim – to construct a home or building. It happens less in large institutions and public services, despite these organisations sharing the same “customers”.

Partnerships are relationships, and collaboration is the process by which the partners work together. Partnerships tend to have common goals and working together benefits both parties. A collaborative partnership goes further and works towards a shared vision or outcome, and is often a long-term approach.

Different situations and challenges will require different approaches to partnering and collaborative decision making. Building a house for instance, requires certain skills and resources for a finite amount of time, with a limited set of options and an outcome that everyone can agree on.

For this work a short-term partnership with limited collaborative decision making will work very well, but there are often situations where a collaborative partnership approach to achieving our aims is required:

Sometimes the challenges we face are so complex that addressing them ourselves is almost impossible
Often we don’t have the resources we need, whether that is knowledge, money or people, and pooling these means we have a better chance of achieving our aims
Sometimes, particularly in the public sector, multiple organisations have the same clients – working together can make our services more effective whilst giving customers a better experience

Collaborative partnerships

Blue Chula specialises in helping develop strong collaborative partnerships which have shared aims, strong governance and great working relationships.

We have experience of working at many levels to address many different challenges, from neighbourhood level approaches to reducing interracial tensions and regenerate estates, to city level to transform public services, to the development of national level policy and strategic approaches to health, data sharing, housing and service reform.

We understand the power of collaboration and encourage all our clients to work closely with stakeholders, partners and communities to create solutions which make places better.