The Power of Positive Partnerships

The old adage “two brains are better than one” is no more true than when organisations partner with each other to design, develop and deliver collaborative ventures. A classic example is that of the Positive Communities consortium that came together in Leicester in early 2021 to assess the feasibility of bidding for a Community Renewal Fund grant from Leicester City Council.

Ethical Business Exchange was at the heart of a process that brought together 12 grassroots organisations who wanted to tackle some of the negative and very serious impacts resulting from Covid-19: mental health decline, domestic abuse, job losses and business closures. There is a second old adage which is often used in relation to funding, that “a funding partnership is the suspension of mutual hostilities by organisations simply to achieve the acquisition of money”!

As far as the Positive Communities partnership was concerned, nothing was further from the truth. Each organisation that bought into the project did so because they wanted the best for their community, and they wanted to learn from others and share their experiences, truly a positive partnership.

The upside of the partnership, of course, was that it secured £500k+ and was able to support more than 800 people who really needed help.

A further upside is that some of the partners have come together again to develop Positive Communities 2 to bid for UK Shared Prosperity Funding support. And the good news is, that application has also been approved, meaning the consortium will be able to offer support to a further 500 people over the next 18 months.

At the start of this Blog, I used the term ‘grassroots’, and it’s worth ending this piece with a definition of what that word actually means. At a very basic level, a grassroots organisation is one that works within the heart of its community to meet the needs of people who live there. It will be community led, and those involved will have ‘lived experience’ of the problems and issues the organisation is trying to tackle. It will also be well placed to develop wider links, ideally with other local organisations, and strategic bodies such as local authorities or bigger NGOs, which can give it some influence in terms of advocating policy making and change.