Collaboration Training

Learn how to use collaboration wisely

Fieldstone Alliance 's collaboration training can be customized for a variety of audiences in a variety of formats—from half- or full-day orientation sessions to three-day intensive institutes.

We often follow our training programs for nonprofit leaders in a given community with related training for consultants, facilitators, funders, and intermediaries. A typical schedule is to do a one- or two-day training for nonprofits in a community; a one-day training for consultants; and a two- to three-hour briefing session for funders.

This approach increases knowledge, creates a common language, and builds in follow-up support throughout a community. The result: a dramatically increased retention and application of what is learned, and changes in practice throughout the community.

This page describes collaboration topics we can cover for three different audiences—funders, consultants, and nonprofits.

Collaboration Workshop for FUNDERS
This training orients grantmakers to current collaboration practices and provides tools for supporting collaborative efforts among grantees.

Topics and objectives (depending on time available and audience experience and interest):

• Collaboration concepts and language
• How to assess a proposal for a collaborative—success factors and warning signs
• When and how to encourage (or discourage) collaboration among grantees
• Challenges related to the grantmaker's role in leading or participating in collaboratives
• Review of mini-cases on funder collaboratives
• Applying this information to real life cases

Collaboration Training for CONSULTANTS and FACILITATORS
Consulting with collaboratives differs from consulting with individual organizations. With multiple organizations, the process is more complex. The dynamics can be electric, power issues are critical, and estimating time and cost is difficult.

Topics and objectives (depending on time available and audience experience and interest):

• How and when consultants can add the most value to collaborative efforts.
• Typical consulting roles as applied to collaboratives.
• Skills and tools for each stage of collaborative development.
• Practice facilitation of the three most challenging dynamics in collaboration: joint planning, negotiating operating How agreements, and group decision making.
• Assessing your collaboration consulting skills.
• How to estimate time and develop realistic collaboration consulting proposals.

Participants receive copies of The Collaboration Handbook by Winer and Ray and Strategic Planning Workbook by Bryan Barry to help them apply what they learned.

Collaboration Workshop for NONPROFITS
Topics and Objectives (depending on time available and audience experience and interest):

• Definition of collaboration
• Success factors in collaboration
• When to collaborate, and when not to collaborate
• The four-stage process of starting and leading a collaboration
• Facilitating collaborative decision making
• Creating operating agreements
• Matching collaboration goals with structure
• Creating effective collaborative structures
• Strengthening accountability in collaborations
• Problem-solving for existing collaboratives
• Interactive exercises that stress application to trainees' own situation

For more information, please contact Sandy Jacobsen at 651.556.4510 or email her at sjacobsen@FieldstoneAlliance.org.