It all seemed so simple at the beginning. It was our job to find the participants, local arts organisations would provide the training and local creative employers would provide the work placements.
All of us doing what we know, all of us doing what we do well, and coming together to provide a structured route-way into work for unemployed people. How could it go wrong?
In fact, it went wrong almost immediately. Looking back now, some 3 years later, we have seen why and drawn the lessons from it, but at the time it was a nightmare. I write this frankly, absolutely secure in the knowledge that whichever of us in that original partnership were writing this article, the assessment of that period would be the same!
We were developing a project for an SRB bid that addressed issues of social exclusion and unemployment. The partner that came up with the project idea was a new kid on the block in a very tight-knit community where the arts leadership had been established for many years. The assumption that this new partner would be allowed to lead the project, subcontracting other arts organisations to undertake work as the need arose, was very quickly refuted. The three or four organisations who had been used to being the key players in the local community were not about to see their roles, and, even more significantly, their funding managed by another arts organisation.
A meeting was called. At the end, there was blood on the carpet, but a solution had been found ? we would set up a Consortium. Each partner organisation would have equal status as a Director of the Consortium, which would have overall responsibility for the delivery of the project. The Consortium would employ two people to manage the project, including responsibility for monitoring the quality of delivery of the individual project partners.
Distrust between all the partners was rampant. Requests for detailed budgets were viewed as nothing less than corporate espionage. The total grant available was known and everyone was steeling themselves to ensure that the division of the spoils was equal. As the tension mounted arguments about the relative value of each partner?s contribution became inevitable. But by some minor miracle, when each partner staked his/her (un-detailed) claim to a share of the pot, it all added up to the exact amount available ? no, none of us could believe it either!
We managed some semblance of unity in front of the assessors and were successful in our bid. The work started, and it became apparent very quickly that running the Consortium was going to prove time consuming, tedious and unnecessarily fractious. Within three months, two of the partners in the Consortium withdrew? as partners, that is. They sought sub-contractor status instead! The three others struggled along and three years on the project has scored substantial success and we are developing the next stage to start next year.
We still have to question whether partnerships can be made from funding-led shot-gun marriages, but the key lessons we learned the hard way are:
? Partners must have an equal stake in the success of the project
? Partners must have common aims and, preferably, common values
? Clarity of roles, responsibilities and accountability needs to be established before the project starts
But the single most vital ingredient is mutual respect and recognition for each other. In any partnership project, difficulties and problems will arise: if there isn?t a foundation of trust, those problems are exacerbated a hundredfold!
This article was submitted by a contributor who prefers to remain anonymous.