Partnering & Keeping the energy flowing

Patricia Oh, PhD, MSW

University of Maine Center on Aging
Consortium for Aging Policy, Research, and Analysis

Partnering offers invaluable benefits for age-friendly initiatives. Joining forces with other groups can expand the reach of your programs, services, and activities. Pooling resources can help you tackle larger projects more effectively. Partnerships with residents, local organizations and groups, municipal decision-makers, and funders give you access to the skills, social and resource connections, and knowledge of each partner. Benefits include: 

When done well, collaborations create a supportive environment for groups and organizations to learn from each other, share burdens, and create more sustainable, long-term projects. Ultimately, strategic partnerships empower age-friendly communities to achieve greater outcomes than the team could accomplish alone, maximizing the potential of all partners to drive positive change.

So, why don't we find more examples of mutually supportive partnerships and collaborations? One reason, as shown in this cartoon, is "turf". Who will get credit? Who is contributing funding? Volunteers? Will the team partner only to find themselves overtaken by a larger organization? 

Finding, involving, and maintaining the partnerships that will keep you moving toward age-friendly goals can be challenging. That is the focus of this chapter. 

Identifying and Nurturing Partnerships

In this video, we talk about the pros and cons of partnering and the importance of building trust between collaborating partners. 

After thinking through the pros and cons of partnering and being committed to building a collaboration where partners (community members, groups, organizations) have trusting relationships, it is time to start looking for partners that can move your mission forward. 

In the resources following the video, we include a guide to the Circles of Engagement to help you identify partners and the level of engagement most appropriate for your work. Hint - not every partner needs to be part of your core team.  

Resources - Identifying and Nurturing Partnerships

Effective collaboration begins within. To work well with others, we must first nurture a collaborative mindset in ourselves. This internal state lays the foundation for successful partnerships, fostering openness, empathy, and a shared sense of purpose in our collective endeavors. The article, Hidden Keys to Collaboration provides a few hints. Prepared to cultivate partnerships, the next step is to identify people in our communities who could be engaged in our work. 

One tool to help you is the Circles of Engagement. Not everyone has to be part of the core leadership team. Different levels of engagement work together to move age-friendly initiatives forward in the community. For example, your mayor may be a champion of your work but be unable to attend every meeting. Even though the mayor is a champion, engaging other elected officials in the circle of information will make them aware of your impact. You will also want to engage local media in the circle of information so they can help you get the word out about your successes. 

Circles of Involvement.pdf

Click here to download a copy of the Circles of Involvement

Click here to download a worksheet to help identify potential partners and how you would like them to be engaged. 

Application - Identifying and Nurturing Partnerships

This short video features an event, Meet and Bleat, sponsored by Berwick for a Lifetime to engage volunteers, raise awareness of age-friendly, and inform people about services offered by Berwick for a Lifetime. 

Click on the flip cards below to read our answers.

Reflection - Identifying and Nurturing Partnerships 

Think about your community. Who are your partners? What is their level of engagement? Are they as involved as you would like them to be? If there is a partner whose engagement you would like to increase, how could you approach that?  What opportunities could you explore? Alternatively, what age-friendly goals (or activities) could benefit from partnerships with other organizations? Select one of the situations that came to mind and briefly describe the collaboration opportunity. Include a list of potential partners and the level of engagement that would most benefit the project. 

In the Engaging and Nurturing Partnerships video, we covered trust. What do you think are key contributors to trust? Draw or describe your mental model for building trust with age-friendly team members and partners. Click here to complete the first of two reflections in this chapter. Entering the reflection will also record your progress.  Important: Complete each section before moving on to its corresponding reflection. When you return to the form, you will automatically be taken to where you last left off. 


Energizing Partnerships - Strategic Doing

Nothing energizes partnerships like celebrating success. Strategic Doing offers a dynamic, collaborative approach that is ideal for the complex landscape of age-friendly community development. 


Note: This method works for volunteer groups that consist primarily of community members and broader age-friendly teams that include partner groups, organizations, funders, and municipal decision-makers. 

Strategic Doing - tools for action-oriented collaborations

Strategic Doing (SD) turns conversation into action! It enables age-friendly leaders and advocates to form action-oriented collaborations quickly, move them toward measurable outcomes, and make adjustments along the way. 

SD unites partners (which may include community members, local groups, municipal departments, and/or regional organizations) to:

Participants focus on small, achievable tasks that advance larger goals, with regular evaluation and adjustment. Age-friendly teams can quickly respond to challenges and new opportunities by prioritizing action over long, drawn-out planning. This fosters innovation and adaptability as team members work together to create inclusive environments for all ages.

 

Tools of Strategic Doing

Appreciative questions are a powerful tool to build upon strengths, successes, and potential. Unlike problem-focused inquiries, appreciative questions encourage age-friendly groups to reflect on what's working well, past achievements, and future possibilities. These questions are framed to inspire optimism, constructive dialogue, and innovative thinking. Examples might include "Imagine our community five years from now at its best - what does it look like?" 

Big Easy projects help age-friendly teams move from ideas to action. They are relatively simple, low-cost initiatives that can be implemented rapidly and serve as a catalyst for larger, more complex projects. Examples include the Pace Car pledge strategy employed in Age-Friendly Gray/New Gloucester and the "Kite in Sight" campaign developed by Living Well in North Yarmouth. Both promoted pedestrian safety using available assets. 

A Path Finder Project builds on the success of the Big Easy and serves as a navigational tool for larger, more complex efforts. It is designed to be substantial and impactful but still manageable enough to be completed in 30 - 90 days. It charts a course, demonstrating the viability of the broader strategy and providing insights for future action. For example, after encouraging residents to sign the Pace Pledge, the age-friendly team joined forces with Vision Zero to host a community workshop that identified infrastructure goals to enhance pedestrian safety. Similarly, Living Well in North Yarmouth partnered with their municipality and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coalition of Maine to implement a demonstration project that led to permanent change. 

The 30/30 maintains momentum and accountability in the collaborative effort. Participants commit to specific, achievable actions that can be completed in 30 days, followed by a 30-minute check-in meeting. During the brief meetings, team members report on their progress, share insights, and adjust the plan as needed. The 30/30 is key to the Strategic Doing principle of "doing, learning, and adjusting" in short, iterative cycles. By breaking larger goals into manageable 30-day chunks and maintaining frequent communication, teams can adapt quickly to changing circumstances, celebrate small wins, and build trust and cohesion. This approach helps transform strategic thinking into tangible actions and results, keeping collaborators aligned and motivated throughout the process. 

Resources - Energizing Partnerships

Application - Energizing Partnerships

Now, think about your own community. Think about one of the broad goals you have identified. Use the worksheets in Strategic Doing Guidelines and Examples to brainstorm a possible "Big Easy" and "Pathfinder Project". Now, think about the partners already engaged in your work: community members, local groups, municipal decision-makers, and organizations. Are there potential partners who could contribute to the project? Whose mission aligns with your "Big Easy"? Brainstorm ideas to engage them as "doers" on your project team. 

Reflection - Energizing Partnerships 

Reflecting on all you have learned about strategic doing, what can you see as the benefits of adopting this approach? Thinking about a team where you are already active, what are some barriers to implementing this approach? How could you work around any barriers you have identified? 

Click here to complete the final reflection in this chapter and record successful completion of the Partnering chapter. Note: Clicking will bring you back to where you left off when you completed your last reflection. When you have finished, please click "submit" to record completion of the Partnering chapter. 

Additional Resources

Community Toolbox. Chapter 5. Coalition Building
We often turn to the Community Toolbox for ideas to help us move age-friendly work forward. This chapter describes how to organize a group of community residents, local groups, and organizations around a common cause, working together to achieve a unified goal. 

Tell Julian. Hargraves Collaboration Guide. Working Better Together
This guide is written primarily to guide work-based teams. However, it applies equally well to community-based collaborations between community members and other partners. 

Lifelong Maine. Partnerships
This section of our Lifelong Maine Age-Friendly Guide explores various aspects of partnering, with a special emphasis on collaborating with municipal partners. 

Lifelong Maine Guide to Strategic Communication, Engaging the Media
Lifelong Maine invited a panel of reporters from print and broadcast media in Maine to share hints and tips for engaging the media, including successfully pitching an age-friendly story. 

Rural Health Innovations. Building Trust in Collaborative Partnerships.
This workbook takes you through an exploration of your own preparedness for collaboration and offers some tools to help you build the trusting relationships that lead to strong collaborations. 

Torbay Community Development Trust. Community Building - Connecting people and place to build community and reduce isolation.
This document shows the power of bringing key partners together, primarily community residents and voluntary groups, to build on community assets and needs to address social isolation. 

Meet Your Chapter Guide - Patricia Oh, PhD, MSW

Patricia Oh serves as the Assistant Director of Community Innovation and Research at the University of Maine Center on Aging where she works with her colleagues on community-engaged research. Her expertise lies in translational research, program development, evaluation, and community education. Since 2012, Dr. Oh has focused on age-friendly community development at national and state levels, with a particular emphasis on rural communities. Dr. Oh is also Co-Director of the Consortium for Aging Policy Research and Analysis, a partnership between the University of Maine and the University of Southern Maine. Based on her research with communities, Dr. Oh has authored more than a dozen book chapters and articles about aging in community and is lead author to the award-winning AARP Roadmap to Livability Series and Rural Livability Report. Recent peer reviewed publications include:


During this chapter, we hope you will gain a few tools for finding, engaging, and maintaining healthy partnerships.
If you have any questions as you are going through the material, please email: lifelong@maine.edu.