Cluster support

Thinking about collaborating?

We are offering free support to any type of collaborative project. 

Are you about to develop a consortium to jointly bid for services or perhaps you're collaborating to share accommodation? You might be getting together with another local group to reduce costs with bulk purchasing or even exploring the feasibility of merger between two organisations.

What can we do for you?

There's a lot we can do - such as helping you develop a set of groundrules for you and your partners - we call it a 'cluster' - or work out a set of common aims and develop a business plan. We can even help you with model agreements if you need them.

We will also collect data from partners that builds a picture of the local context and advise on specific issues such as proposing an appropriate legal structure structuring a business plan review and developing a fund-raising strategy. 

Who can apply for facilitation support?

Any group of organisations which is at any stage of working on a collaborative venture may apply for the cluster support. There is no cost for the support service but we do expect a high degree of commitment to both the collaboration and to working with bassac.

Interested?

Please get in touch with Keith at keith@bassac.org.uk or call him on 020 7250 8063. Keith will take your contact details and a brief outline of your collaboration project and explain the next steps.

What next?

STEP ONE: Fill in our facilitation support questionnaire which asks about your organisation; your collaboration plans; who the partners are; your cluster aims and mission; and what specific areas you would like our facilitaton support to address.

STEP TWO: We'll look at your application and support needs alongside the capacity of our cluster managers and programme needs. We will be in touch with you as soon as possible about support options.

STEP THREE:  We'll arrange a meeting with you and any key workers that you’d like to be present at this first meeting. We'll look in more depth at what you want to achieve and what kind of support might be helpful. We will agree a plan with you on how this will be carried out and discuss and agree issues relating to confidentiality.

What does bassac expect from us?

We ask for a commitment to the process – you and your partners must be willing to explore all the options. It may mean that the partnership will not work successfully – a perfectly acceptable outcome might be that having explored the options it is decided that the potential ‘added value’ might not be worth the investment. We'll support you in that decision.

We also ask you to take part in our evaluation process, which will help us to capture further information on ‘what works’ (and what doesn’t!).