II. Building Relationships

Good relationships build trust and goodwill and provide a solid foundation for partners to work together to achieve mutual goals. This chapter:

Elements of Success

Experience shows that successful partnerships and collaborative efforts exhibit the following features:

• Clear objectives – The partnership lays out clear objectives that may include specific stewardship goals or building skills, relationships, and capacity.

• Agreed-upon scope – Agreement on the scope of a partnership, including its scale, extent, and intent, focuses the partnership effort.

• Sufficient resources and information – The partnership or collaboration has access to sufficient resources to ensure success. Resources include time, staff, information, data, skills, and money.

• Mutual benefits and responsibility – All parties share in the decision-making process, responsibility for outcomes, and benefits of the partnership.

• Respect – Partners not only respect each other but also understand and respect the missions, goals, and regulations of the organizations involved.

• Good communication – Continuous communication and frequent opportunities to check progress build relationships that provide mutual recognition, trust, and respect, and improve the capacity of participants to solve problems together.

• Careful management – Essential elements include: 1) clearly defined participant roles and responsibilities; 2) clear ground rules and protocols; and 3) informal and formal communication links with the public, the media, and other government agencies.

• Compliance with legal requirements – The government agency and outside partners all comply with legal guidelines and policies that govern their status and partnership involvement. The partners are knowledgeable about legal authorities and constraints that may impact their decisions.

• Planning for implementation and evaluation – Participants agree on the steps that each will take to implement their collective plan, and on measurable outcomes to gauge effectiveness.

These features help to build the effectiveness of any partnership. Since collaborative efforts commonly bring together stakeholders with a long history of conflict and mistrust, they face additional challenges in achieving a balanced group dynamic. Successful collaborative groups take care to provide the following elements:

• Inclusion – Collaborative planning for forest management includes all parties with a stake in the results. The process treats all participants fairly and consistently. It allows participants to consult with relevant constituencies and to feel vested in all decisions made.

• Incentives to participate – Stakeholders in a collaborative effort have sufficient and continuing incentives to participate.

• Accountable representation – The participants who represent groups or organizations effectively speak for the interests they represent and are accountable to their constituency.

• Equal access – The collaborative group ensures equal opportunities to participate, access to relevant scientific and technical information, and skill-building for participants.