Discover and build

Where are we now?

Where do we start? What do we need to know? What might help us form ideas for the scope of our partnership’s work? Who are the right people to have round the table?

If you are at this Discover stage you may already be a small initial group of local leaders and those representing arts and culture in the area, who are starting to have some initial ideas of what local challenges you could address through a strategic partnership. You may be considering ways to scope potential need and might be looking for inspiration and routes through to further understand the problems – problems you can solve with others.

Ingredients and resources

There are many ingredients of success that feel relevant to the Discover stage; we have selected some key ones here. The resources that map against these ingredients aim to support a new, developing partnership with tips, research and models, as well as inspiration from other non-arts sectors and partnership programmes.

• Building a relevant and diverse membership: We have collated resources that will help support the development of a new strategic partnership. You can find a checklist for efficient governance and an overview of some emerging models of governance across London’s Cultural Education Partnerships to date
• Beginning to consider local and user need: At this stage you might want to do some light touch research of beneficiaries, consultation, or a Radical Efficiency course as an alternative approach. Here you can find 10 questions for developing partnerships to ask young people and review some of the responses from a Radical Efficiency workshop
• Beginning to identify a clear set of purposes: For inspiration, we have included a growing collection of case studies providing a rich array of programme examples to search through; international inspirational examples of powerful partnerships at work.

See the full set of 13 Powerful Partnerships ingredients