Look before you leap

Many of us are looking at the potential for new partnerships and collaborations to optimise our effectiveness and increase social impact. Here's a quick checklist to help you look at every angle before you dive in ... It's a simple yet powerful framework

Look Forward

• Why collaborate? What's the intended social impact?
• Why now?

Look Back

• What lessons can be learned from past attempts to address this issue? (our efforts and others' efforts)
• What lessons have we learned from past partnerships or collaborations?

Look Across

• What are our untested assumptions and expectations?
• Assess our potential partner’s motivations, capacities and the risks they present

Look Inward

• Assess our own motivations, capacities - and the risks of working with us
• What are our 'lines in the sand'?

Look Around

• Consider external stakeholders and their perspective on the collaboration
• Who are our competitors? Should they be collaborators?

Look Deeply

• Do we have a genuinely robust, positive process for  working through disagreements? 
• How reliable are the data and information sources on all sides?

Look Clearly

• Talk through the collaboration agreement and implications prior to signing
•  “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler” Review regularly.

Look Again

• Are we sure this is the most effective approach?
• When's our next assessment of the collaboration?