Working in partnership

Working in partnership is central to the Aimhigher programme so it is always worth considering how you can capitalise on existing relationships with other organisations or build new ones to maximise the impact of your communications activities.

Where you can, work with third parties who already have direct communication channels to your target audiences. Piggybacking onto the communication activities of others makes sense if it avoids duplication of effort and materials.

Developing joint communications initiatives can also be extremely successful as long as there is a good match in terms of target audiences and key messages. Any joint initiatives should be treated as such. It is essential that early on in the project, the lead organisation is identified in terms of communications and that there is agreement about how the activity will be managed. Usually, all parties will be given the credit for the partnership project, either through all logos appearing on the communications materials or by naming all the partners in the text.

Top tips

• Find out what they want to get out of the communications activity – what’s in it for them?

• What will they bring to the partnership e.g. contacts, mailing lists, experience, funding?

• Discuss how the activity will be funded and agree who does what, as well as approval processes and spokespeople.

• Be clear about timings and agree an ‘exit strategy’ between you – what is the lifespan of the communications activity?

• Hold regular update meetings to ensure continued dialogue.

Action on Access has produced a report entitled ‘Aimhigher and the Learning & Skills Council: Approaches to joint working’ which illustrates a range of joint working arrangements. A PDF version of the report can be downloaded from the Action on Access website.