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Understanding the Drivers of Partnership Success

Received: 2 March 2018     Accepted: 4 April 2018     Published: 25 March 2019
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Abstract

Partnerships are effective and sustainable mechanisms that enable development NGOs effectively achieve their mandates and project interventions at community level. However many partnerships fail to achieve their envisioned outcomes due to factors that limit or hinder their success. It is often difficult to consistently manage partnership success when the partnership involves organizations with different mandates, organizational structures, values, professional capacities and limited resources. The purpose of the study was to explore factors that are perceived as key in facilitating partnership success from the perspective of local NGOs engaged in development partnerships. Experiences and understanding of NGO leaders and staff engaged in partnership work were explored through a series of interviews. The study revealed the following factors that were perceived to be key to nurturing successful partnerships; commitment, communication, shared vision and purpose, collaborative leadership and realistic funding. It is important for any agency or institution seeking to collaborate with others to identify and monitor both the’ hard’ and ‘soft’ aspects that promote partnership success.

Published in Humanities and Social Sciences (Volume 7, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.hss.20190701.13
Page(s) 21-27
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Partnership Success, Collaboration, Alliances and NGOs

References
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  • @article{10.11648/j.hss.20190701.13,
      author = {Rehema Batti},
      title = {Understanding the Drivers of Partnership Success},
      journal = {Humanities and Social Sciences},
      volume = {7},
      number = {1},
      pages = {21-27},
      doi = {10.11648/j.hss.20190701.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.hss.20190701.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.hss.20190701.13},
      abstract = {Partnerships are effective and sustainable mechanisms that enable development NGOs effectively achieve their mandates and project interventions at community level. However many partnerships fail to achieve their envisioned outcomes due to factors that limit or hinder their success. It is often difficult to consistently manage partnership success when the partnership involves organizations with different mandates, organizational structures, values, professional capacities and limited resources. The purpose of the study was to explore factors that are perceived as key in facilitating partnership success from the perspective of local NGOs engaged in development partnerships. Experiences and understanding of NGO leaders and staff engaged in partnership work were explored through a series of interviews. The study revealed the following factors that were perceived to be key to nurturing successful partnerships; commitment, communication, shared vision and purpose, collaborative leadership and realistic funding. It is important for any agency or institution seeking to collaborate with others to identify and monitor both the’ hard’ and ‘soft’ aspects that promote partnership success.},
     year = {2019}
    }
    

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    AB  - Partnerships are effective and sustainable mechanisms that enable development NGOs effectively achieve their mandates and project interventions at community level. However many partnerships fail to achieve their envisioned outcomes due to factors that limit or hinder their success. It is often difficult to consistently manage partnership success when the partnership involves organizations with different mandates, organizational structures, values, professional capacities and limited resources. The purpose of the study was to explore factors that are perceived as key in facilitating partnership success from the perspective of local NGOs engaged in development partnerships. Experiences and understanding of NGO leaders and staff engaged in partnership work were explored through a series of interviews. The study revealed the following factors that were perceived to be key to nurturing successful partnerships; commitment, communication, shared vision and purpose, collaborative leadership and realistic funding. It is important for any agency or institution seeking to collaborate with others to identify and monitor both the’ hard’ and ‘soft’ aspects that promote partnership success.
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  • IMD Business School, Lausanne, Switzerland

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