Brokering Partnerships Remotely course is for partnership practitioners with responsibility for mobilising and managing partnerships in scenarios where the partners rarely meet face to face. If you are in that situation, and you feel quite challenged and / or isolated in this role, this course will provide insight, knowledge, practical advice and a community of support.
To find out more please contact info@partnershipbrokers.org

Around 80 front-line partnership practitioners working remotely have embarked on the 4-week intensive course that will see them each drawing up a detailed Remote Partnering Action Plan and peer reviewing the action plans of three others. This course will operate as an online practitioners community and is expected to generate highly original materials and insights into how remote partnering can become a dynamic partnering opportunity (as opposed to a partnering ‘second best’).

The Geneva Learning Foundation and the Scholar Programme are the perfect partners to helping us realise our dream of a cutting edge online learning opportunity for those working in remote partnering scenarios. The Foundation brings a wealth of online learning experience, and a tried and tested approach that has overcome many of the common challenges that other online approaches have faced.

Cordaid – based in the Netherlands – and Save the Children UK are welcome additions to the widening group of partners supporting our online Remote Partnering Certificate. This makes our total number of partners for phase 3 of the project a grand total of 12… with others (not all from the INGO sector!) waiting in the wings to join us later.

Founding partners confirm their commitment to the project for Phase 3 (October 2017- March 2018). The Humanitarian Leadership Academy (funders of Phase 2) joins the initial 5 founding partners. And 5 new organisations join as partners in the development and piloting of the Remote Partnering Online Programme (RPOP). These are: Act Alliance, Care International, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Oxfam. Exciting times!

The founding partners: Action Against Hunger, British Red Cross, Partnership Resource Centre, Partnership Brokers Association and PAX welcomed Humanitarian Leadership Academy as a board member, following being a donor for the Design Lab in Phase 2.  New partners who have recently joined the Remote Partnering Online Programme (RPOP) working group and have invested in its development include CARE International, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Oxfam International. We look forward to welcoming further partners in September.

How can we use technology to reinforce the key partnering principles when partnering remotely? This was the theme for a series of three webinars held in April and May 2017 as part of our research into remote partnering. 23 participants from India, Australia, UK, Slovenia, Lithuania and USA attended, representing the following sectors: INGOs, online learning community, tertiary education institute, accredited partnership brokers and individual practicioners. The webinars had a dual purpose: to share findings from our remote partnering research to date and also gather more information as part of an ongoing and iterative learning process. You can find a report on findings from the webinars prepared by Joanna Pyres and Catherine Russ in the Project Outputs section.

16 people came to the Lab and, as hoped, it was real exploration of new ways of thinking about remote partnering – with: journalling; back-to-back (ie as if long-distance) conversations (on language, context and time); igniting our sense through listening, connecting, drawing and painting; games and stories as ways of unleashing imagination and insight; an exploration of technology as a way of building equity and long-distance partnerships that are genuinely co-created and more… See Project Outputs for what we produced and feel free to try out some of the ideas and let us know how they go and / or add some new ones…