The following ideas and methods for assuring healthy momentum in your collaborative effort were drawn from two sources listed at the bottom of this piece.

Collaborative systems which are lasting must give attention to maintaining the energy and momentum of people involved and of the system itself.

Communication: Regular communications maintain updated knowledge and sustain interest of persons inside and outside the collaborative membership. Communication ideas include:

• regular meetings -public meetings
• training -retreats
• community support -sponsoring activities

Ongoing Recruitment and Ownership: The momentum of enthusiasm is maintained when new individuals and groups are recruited. Successful coalitions develop support systems that provide ownership of the solutions and collaborative efforts of people and programs.

Organizational Process: Several aspects of organizational process can prove crucial to ongoing collaborative success. They include:

• Provide conflict resolution mechanisms to resolve turf struggles, power struggles, and communication issues.
• Clearly define roles and responsibilities.
• Outline processes to define the problem and make people aware of it.

Ongoing Planning: Planning processes should provide for the rearticulation and clarification of the vision while setting goals that can be achieved within a realistic time-frame.

Personal Care: Provide sources of satisfaction and minimize sources of dissatisfaction for all involved. People need to have fun and feel they are making a contribution. Model good prevention. Give people time to slow down and take care of personal priorities.

Training and Technical Assistance: Training and technical assistance assist in maintaining the momentum of the collaborative system.

Other Strategies: Other strategies to maintain momentum are:

• Public reports of results/successes -Ensure adequate resources/funding
• Anticipate political changes -Be open to feedback and modify or adjust
• Celebrate success -Assess and evaluate progress
• Acknowledge people and their contributions

Levels of Relationship: Cooperation, coordination and collaboration are different levels of networking. As a coalition moves from cooperating to coordination to collaboration it's members will find that each step along the way requires more time, more trust, and more commitment to the greater community vision. Clear communication is essential.

Power for Social Change: Collaboration results in power that is a legitimate tool for social change. Remember to use peer pressure and the strength and momentum of the group to encourage participation.

• Do an asset map of community resources.
• Secure and nurture formal and informal alliances

Reward Structures: Build in reward structures to provide for fun, recognition and personal satisfaction.

Evaluation: Use evaluation processes to mark and celebrate milestones.

Return to Purpose of Collaboration: The sole purpose of collaboration is to achieve results which each group or individual could not achieve alone. We must accept the validity of evaluation information to achieve both our self-interests and community efforts.

Promote Adaptability and Flexibility: Work at being adaptable and flexible. Adaptability is the capacity to adjust to major changes in the community (external forces).

Flexibility is the capacity to remain open to varied ways of organizing a collaboration. Collaborations are organized in ways that are temporary and constantly evolving. Use information from evaluation and other feedback to renew output and action.

Ask Real Questions: Attend to the questions you need to ask, not answers you want to hear.

Successes and Failures: Study both successes and failures and use that information to renew relationships and challenges.

Retire Appropriate Members: There is less need for people who envision and empower as a collaboration matures, than there is for people who ensure success through attention to details, procedures and implementation.

A discussion of what the collaboration group needs and who can best meet those needs will manage the issue of sunsetting. The convener raises the question, and as a group the answers are found. Sunsetted partners are rewarded as they leave. Do not use sunsetting to avoid conflict. If sunsetting is the best decision, be considerate and careful; don't burn bridges. The home-base may educate it's representative or send a better-qualified person. A power broker may be blocking the representatives efforts--so be aware of the situation.

Add New Members: Seek new members in response to the collaborations changing needs.

Formal or informal evaluation tells us what powers (e.g. charisma, connections, expertise, fame and visibility, integrity and credibility, life experience, persuasion, position and turf, resources) to add and what style preferences to search for. In later stages of collaborations we most likely need:

• Task-oriented players who might have found the first two stages too slow.
• Staff who are likely to implement change.
• Consumers or end users who will benefit from the collaborations effects.

Orient New Members: Adding new members changes the structure of the collaboration. Examine and modify action plans and joint agreements as needed to accommodate new members and new home-base organizations.

Celebrate: Members of collaborations need to feel involved, useful and valued. Reward those staying and those leaving. Recognize established members and create opportunities to include new people who might renew the work. Document change and celebrate it.

Sources:

The Circle, Inc. (1991) The Future by Design: A Community Prevention System Framework, Washington, D.C.: Office for Substance Abuse Prevention,

Winer, M. & Ray, K. (1994) Collaboration Handbook, St. Paul, MN: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.

Prepared by Gayle Carmody, Family Living Educator, UW-Extension, Langlade County in consultation with Boyd Rossing, Community Development Specialist, School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 1998