For 20 years I worked with an international NGO (non-governmental organisation), the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF), leading their ‘cross-sector partnership’ work. What this phrase describes is a mechanism whereby business, governments and civil society (non-profit entities) work together in a mutually beneficial and equitable way to achieve sustainable development goals. Such partnerships come in all shapes and sizes – being highly adaptive to different contexts and specific challenges.

IBLF’s focus is how to bring business constructively into the equation – enabling the corporate sector (so often vilified for its destructive rather than constructive behaviour) to contribute its particular set of attributes (eg innovation, speed of delivery, management know-how, potential for reaching scale) to the development table alongside the equally important, if different, attributes of the other two sectors.

It is a relatively small NGO with a track record of being ahead of the evidence and ‘punching above its weight’ (not a particularly attractive image, but I can’t think of another!). Go to www.iblf.org for more information about the important work IBLF does around partnering and beyond.

During my years with IBLF, I was given ‘carte blanche’ to develop ideas, tools and techniques that would build capacity around the world and in all three sectors to ‘partner’ effectively. Much of this material is captured in a series of Partnering Tool Books that IBLF generously makes available to anyone interested – go to www.ThePartneringInitiative.org to download copies. The basic book – The Partnering Toolbook – is now available in 18 languages. This website also gives a rich picture of the on-going partnership work including training, consultancy, research and much more. A selection of publications is available on the publications page.

There is much to say about the wide-ranging nature of this work but my current focus is now on the specific issue of ‘partnership brokering’ – a term (I think) I invented somewhere around 1999 to describe the role of an intermediary working on behalf of the partnership as a whole to make it efficient and to help maximise the partnership’s potential.

Download ‘What is a partnership broker?’

In 2003, with a colleague (Michael Warner), the first training programme was launched for those operating in the partnership-brokering role – designed to build the skills, confidence and competencies necessary to broker partnerships effectively. Since then the scope of work has grown significantly and there is now a freestanding professional not-for-profit entity – the PARTNERSHIP BROKERS ASSOCIATION – that delivers a comprehensive range of training courses as well as undertaking research into the added value brokers bring to partnerships. See www.partnershipbrokers.org

As well as running training courses for the Partnership Brokers Association, I also work as a partnership broker – particularly in brokering the idea of partnerships with those for whom the concept is new.

Something of this role is enshrined in the following paper – co-written with a partnership broker colleague, Rafal Serafin – based on work we did together in Poland in 1993.

Download Brokering the Idea by Ros Tennyson and Rafal Serafin