Building a Partnership Framework

After School Matters will co-design with the Hive Network a partnership framework and resources to support collaborative and effective relationships between Hive member organizations. After School Matters has created This research-informed framework addresses key components to effective collaboration, critical for After School Matters’ work with a variety of partners. Through this collaboration, tools and resources will be produced and shared with the Hive network for building healthy partnerships. In particular it may be useful for smaller Hive organizations, who are strengthening their ability to be key partners in Hive’s work. The framework will produce some common languages and shared practices around partnership development, informed by practice and research.

This project will leverage After School Matters experience in partnership development with community-based organizations, museums, post-secondary institutions, and city agencies for over 20 years.  Based on the three different stages of the draft framework: incubation, growth, and dissemination, After School Matters used a summer project to evaluate and assess the partner relationship to create tools to utilize with an emerging partner. In the first part of this project, After School Matters will analyze the partnership between a Hive funded project with two organizations, West Town Bikes and Free Spirit Media. After School Matters will create tools and resources to evaluate the funded partnership and propose to remix openly shared and existing tools from partnership frameworks.

In the second phase of the project,After School Matters will apply the tools and framework to a new, emerging partnership and steward an open conversation to ensure buy in and understanding of project goals and expectations. Throughout both phases of the project, findings and reflections will be openly shared with Hive leadership, as well as through a minimum of three blog posts. The final partnership framework toolkit will include the framework, tools, and guidelines for using the toolkit. After School Matters will work with a graphic designer and web developer to create an openly-shared and online version of the toolkit. Finally, After School Matters and Hive will facilitate a “deep dive” on partnership development and assessment for the Hive network.