Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund evaluation: final report

Partnerships 

Formal and informal partnerships between third sector organisations have arisen as a result of the CYPFEI & ALEC Fund. In some cases these were new relationships, that may have been facilitated by the Corra Foundation or Policy Officers, and in other cases they built on existing relationships between third sector organisations. The partnership working helped improve services, raise awareness and the profile of organisations, and enhanced knowledge sharing and learning. 

Formal and informal partnerships 

Generally, partnerships are an integral way of working for third sector organisations and have been for some time. This entails both formal and informal working with third sector partners, as well as public sector agencies. 

“Some people face complex issues so one organisation is unlikely to provide all of the support they need to help them recover their situation. That is why partnership working between organisations is important”. (Third sector organisation).

“Working in partnership with other organisations is fundamental to us because as a small team and charity we must work in partnership so we can reach parents where they are. So informal partnership working is innate to us, we work with many organisations to ensure they know our resources for families that they can give to parents”. (Third sector organisation).

“Informal partnerships happen all the time where this can be of huge benefit, such as utilising specific skills and support for pieces of work”. (Third sector organisation).

The Fund’s focus on partnership working, and the continuing policy context which promotes partnerships, resulted in funded organisations working extensively with third sector partners. Numerous examples were included in monitoring reports and during consultations. The examples demonstrate the breadth of these partnerships which have been formal and informal, as well as operational and strategic, and included intermediary organisations.

“CYPFEI has generated and sustained inward and onward referral partnerships at operational level across multiple sectors, by supporting our inherently partnership-based programme activities. It has also contributed to our strategic partnership building in a variety of ways”. (Third sector organisation).

“Partnership work is embedded as a project outcome for us, and is also clearly valued by the Fund so we've been able to really focus on this in our work and our reports”. (Third sector organisation).

“We have always had strong and positive partnerships within the community development field and the funding has helped us to strengthen these”. (Third sector organisation).

“The CYPFEI & ALEC programme has enabled and supported the work of our organisation in developing and maintaining partnerships, formal and informal, across the third sector and with our statutory partners”. (Third sector organisation).

“The Fund has allowed us to build and sustain a very wide variety of partnerships”. (Third sector organisation).

“We are a membership organisation and therefore partnership working informally and formal is key to our activity. Funding allows us to deliver that membership support”. (Third sector organisation).

The Corra Foundation’s role in encouraging and facilitating partnership working was emphasised. This encompassed direct introductions facilitated by Corra staff as well as partnerships that evolved from networking at the Fund’s annual conference or workshops organised by the Foundation. There appears therefore to be tangible added value in the Support and Engagement Programme.

“[Corra Foundation] have been very good at suggesting partners we could liaise with and facilitating some of these introductions and through those introductions and other networking across the sector, although the immediate introductions perhaps didn’t bear fruit, they’ve started to bear fruit further down the line, so for example, we’ve now got a very good close working relationship with [organisation] that we didn’t have before and that’s about to get consolidated further as we’re both about to move into the same office suite…those kind of introductions have been really helpful”. (Third sector organisation).

“Positive efforts made by our monitoring officer to introduce and make links with other organisations”. (Third sector organisation).

“Offered networking opportunities at conferences and learning events. [Monitoring officers] connected us with organisations linked to our current project work”. (Third sector organisation).

“Being part of the Fund has created opportunities to meet other funded organisations. Corra offers introductions to other organisations where they see a potential benefit or opportunity for joint work. The networking opportunities and learning network events are much appreciated”. (Third sector organisation).

“The opportunities to meet, network, learn about the work of others, and share our own work have been very helpful”. (Third sector organisation).

“The networking events, and particularly the conference are great for meeting people and generating ideas. It has allowed us to explore other ways of looking at our work, and to consider projects we are interested in developing in a fresh light”. (Third sector organisation).

“CYPFEI has, primarily through the training and networking opportunities offered, increased our ability to consider appropriate involvement with other third sector organisations. This has resulted in more informal working relationships than was evident before”. (Third sector organisation).

Some funded organisations highlighted the increased capacity that CYPFEI & ALEC funding provided as a driver of the partnership working. 

“It has provided us with the capacity to enable greater formal and informal partnership working”. (Third sector organisation).

“The work we do funded by CYPFEIF is collaborative by nature - having this funding in place has certainly led to some partnerships that we would otherwise not have had the capacity to pursue”. (Third sector organisation).

“It has provided us with the capacity to enable greater formal and informal partnership working which has enhanced knowledge sharing and learning”. (Third sector organisation).

The longitudinal survey of funded organisations, shows both formal and informal partnership working among third sector organisations improved between 2016 and 2019. Given the evidence presented above, it is reasonable to conclude that CYPFEI & ALEC funding contributed to this. The improvement in formal partnerships was greater (+0.4) than the improvement in informal partnership working. Interestingly, funded organisations rated their informal partnership working with other third sector organisations significantly higher (8.6 out of 10) than their formal partnership working (7.6). 

On a scale of one to ten, please rate…	2019 rating	2016 rating	Change 2016 to 2019
Your organisation’s informal partnership working with other third sector organisations	8.6	8.4	+0.2
Your organisation’s formal partnership working with other third sector organisations	7.6	7.2	+0.4

On partnership working in a broader sense, it was noteworthy that the most significant increase over time on the longitudinal survey of funded organisation was recorded on their involvement in local groups. This increased from 6.5 out of 10 in 2016 to 7.5 in 2019. Additional capacity was one explanation offered by some funded organisations.

Improved services 

Many organisations supported by the Fund described improved services and achievement of positive outcomes as a result of strengthening and developing partnerships. For example, one third sector organisation commented: “From this funding, we have deepened existing partnerships and built new, exciting partnerships that enable us to help young parents take steps towards making bright futures and make positive differences in their communities”. Another funded organisation commented that: “We have been able to work more closely with other third sector organisations to better support a wider range of families”. Other relevant comments include:

“The funding has enabled us to develop and deepen our partnerships with other organisations in order to jointly deliver services”. (Third sector organisation).

“We are an intermediary organisation and the Fund has allowed us to increase our membership, develop new networks and create new formal partnerships all of which has improved our performance and helped us achieve our core goals”. (Third sector organisation).

Raised awareness and profile of organisations 

Partnerships have helped to raise awareness and promote the work undertaken by funded organisations. For example, one organisation reported “It has raised awareness of our work among other organisations as well as helping create new relationships”. New partnerships formed through the Fund have also helped raise awareness of services amongst the target group. Third sector organisations suggested their increased presence and profile places them in a strong position for future funding and other opportunities that may enhance their sustainability.

“It’s been a massive opportunity to spend the time and have the space to build relationships and promote work with partner organisations – we have developed good links with Who Cares? Scotland, Barnardo’s and Education Scotland, for example, so that we have been able to raise awareness of the service amongst kids in care and those who work with them, been able to develop education resources to ensure that they are on the curriculum in Keeping Me Safe lesson plans”. (Third sector organisation).

“We are now being approached by other organisations to share important aspects of their work through our networks, social media and bulletins and are asked to comment on consultation exercises. Our profile has grown substantially since receiving the funds”. (Third sector organisation).

“The Fund has enabled us to be present at a wider range of national events/training/Corra events to inform and promote our training development, this has significantly increased our presence outwith our traditional area of operation and has enabled us to form much stronger connections with other third sector organisations and promote their work in our local area”. (Third sector organisation).

Enhanced knowledge sharing and learning 

The Fund has also enhanced knowledge sharing and learning among some third sector organisations.

“The CYPFEI Fund has most definitely given us the opportunity to work with some amazing organisations and we have been able to share a lot of good and interesting practice with our members”. (Third sector organisation).

“The Fund has been useful in consolidating connections we had - the knowledge sharing group we participated in during the first couple of years of the Fund was made up of a number of organisations who we have similarities with and we had an existing relationship with most of them”. (Third sector organisation).

Barriers to formal partnerships

Third organisations reported some resistance to formal partnership working. Barriers to formal partnerships related to tendering and the sharing of commercially sensitive information, and they were sometimes based on previous bad experiences.

“Formal partnerships are a tricky one and imply entering into some form of financial or tied agreement and organisations are reluctant to do this, either for intellectual property reasons, competition, or having had a bad past experience”. (Third sector organisation). 

“The challenge is that many of the third sector are all applying to the same funders and can be stressful as times. You have to be very patient and honest up front when working with other third sector organisations. One way around this is finding your USP and making sure it fits with the other partners”. (Third sector organisation).

Partnership agreements was offered by one third sector organisation as a potential solution.

“We have developed processes and procedures over the years to ensure our formal partnerships work effectively for example by putting partnership agreements in place prior to applying for funding”. (Third sector organisation).

Information sharing

Generally, the funded organisations had a positive attitude to and experiences of sharing information with other third sector organisations. The issue was rated at 7.9 out of 10 in 2019, a broadly similar level to 2016 (8.0). The introduction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018 brought with it a new set of challenges although they had subsequently been overcome. There were isolated examples of particular challenges which tended to involve information sharing with statutory partners rather than other third sector organisations although solutions were eventually found in these examples.