The Benton Foundation Explores Public Television Partnerships
For the past five years, Sound Partners for Community Health has fostered extraordinary experiments between radio broadcasters and local organizations that encourage dialogue and debate in their communities around health care issues. The success of this collaborative approach has not only confirmed that communications can help to solve social problems, but provides a strong foundation for expanding Sound Partners to other media, specifically television. Much of the research and development that has gone into the plans for piloting the Sound Partners model in television has been drawn from the Benton Foundation's work with a project called Partners in Public Service (PIPS). PIPS showcases eight collaborations between public television stations and museums and libraries-organizations that share a mission of education and public service.
While public television has a long history of cooperating with local cultural and educational partners, PIPS' aim has been to document best practices and lessons learned from recent collaborations. Penn State University, the catalyst for PIPS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funded the project, believed that documenting and sharing the stories of these collaborations with other organizations was critical. The Benton Foundation, which was able to share its knowledge of the dynamics and power of partnerships between radio broadcasters and community organizations with PIPS participants and learn from them how to translate this knowledge to television, worked with the university to create a comprehensive partnership toolkit. Included are overviews of each of the PIPS projects, a report on their partnership experience and a collection of articles, templates and checklists related to collaboration. Several themes have emerged from PIPS that echo those of Sound Partners grantees: communications pitfalls, technical glitches, the level of support and resources required of collaborating organizations, the leadership traits desired in participating individuals and the need for a framework within which partners can operate. Successful partnerships, participants believed, depended on the people involved and the systems in place to support them. Some lessons the group learned include:
Define partnership parameters: An organization needs to carefully consider its and its partner's goals and expectations before engaging in collaboration, determining whether the organization's investment is in a short-term project or a long-term partnership. Once these issues are clarified, all participants in the partnership should define organizational boundaries, identify a process for exchanging ideas, clarify financial responsibilities and assign roles and responsibilities.
Assemble a strong team: Partnerships require communication, cooperation and compromise. They require people who are able to relate and interact with others beyond hierarchical and organizational boundaries. Identify team players and designate both a project manager, who will provide direction to the partnership, and a liaison from each organization, who will facilitate conversation and action.
Ensure two-way and ongoing communications: Implementing a process for communicating with one another, from whom to contact about what, to how to resolve areas of tension, to understanding each other's jargon, will help to ease misunderstandings. PIPS participants found it helpful to focus on the overall goals of the project in order to get over bumps or roadblocks along the way.
Define and find time: Time goes directly to the heart of a partnership and signifies an organization's investment in it. By not allotting time for nurturing the partnership and attending to project-related activities, an organization sends a signal that it isn't invested in or doesn't value the relationship. Organizations need to recognize the amount of time required of partnerships and account for it.
PIPS participants unanimously agreed that the rewards of collaboration were well worth the effort, but they do caution organizations to look before they leap, have an open mind and not be discouraged.
"Every institution has its own unique set of problems and opportunities and when two of them intersect, it's challenging," said PIPS participant Harold Kramer of Connecticut Public Broadcasting. "When you go into a partnership, you're going to see all the partner's warts and blemishes. Sometimes your preconceived ideas have to change."
The majority of PIPS participants plan to continue partnerships or forge new ones based on these learning experiences. They believe that the future of their organizations could be determined by their willingness to collaborate. "I like the concept of organizations working together as they face changes in the way they operate," said Glenn Willumson of the Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State. "Public broadcasting, for instance, is thinking in really different ways about outreach, ways that resonate with museums because they challenge us to think about new ways to operate. This could fundamentally affect the way museums function."
The documentation of the experiences of PIPS participants is intended to help people anticipate what to expect from partnerships, but it is in no way a substitute for an organization's own experiences. As all travelers know, detours and rough roads are part of the journey. A guide is essential, but taking the journey is the only way to understand the territory. Sound Partners will use the map developed by PIPS to help grantees navigate the road ahead of them.
For more information on the PIPS project, contact Karen Menichelli or Whitney Wilcox at the Benton Foundation, (202-638-5770) or log on to http://www.benton.org/Practice/Features/PIPS.