How to collaborate

Working in collaboration is a journey consisting of small steps that should be taken one at a time.

Identify or decide what you want to do

Before getting together you need to consider all your options including why you're considering the collaboration, how it will benefit your organisation and its users, what you will achieve from the partnership and who will be involved.

Plan or work out how you're going to do it

Ask yourself - do you know enough about your partner organisation? Are you agreed on what you both want to achieve? Who's doing what in this collaboration? What's the timeframe and how much will it cost? 

Implement or make it happen

So now you have to do the work. Make sure you're all clear about how you keep an eye on what you're doing and also how you are going to report that back to funders, users and staff. TALK to each other.  Be prepared to solve problems along the way and be honest about what's working and what's not.

Review or look at how it went

There is always something to learn from any project.  Make sure you evaluate the project against what you expected to achieve. Be prepared to call it a day if you're not getting what you expected and do this before you spoil working relationships. 

The Collaboration Benefits tools and templates listings include tools mapped from a variety of resources to guide your strategic planning and thinking.

If you would like to share your own experiences or tell us about other publications that you've found useful please email to sarah@bassac.org.uk