Assessing Partnerships

A Relationships Assessment

Partnerships between Main Street and other community organizations and agencies are helping to create vibrant downtowns where businesses thrive. These partnerships bring together diverse individuals and groups, including land owners, business owners, residents, visitors, economic development organizations, local governments, and other nonprofits.

Take time at your next board meeting and have each board and staff member answer the following questions. Then hand them over to your manager and get the results by email within the week. Set time on the very next board meeting to discuss the results and next steps.

• What partners for Main Street exist in your community? (See Identifying Partners.)
• What types of partnerships do you already have? (Funders, volunteers, business owners, in-kind donors, etc.)
• How are they working? (Is it a mutually beneficial relationship — Is Main Street helping them and are they helping Main Street?
• How would you rate your relationships? (1: Working great, continue to invest and support; 2: Needs some time and attention to really be successful; or 3: Needs evaluation to determine if we want to continue to partner.)
• How would you improve them? Would you attend their events or share information with them? If you were that partner, how would you want Main Street to improve the relationship?
• How do you maintain partnerships and relationships? (Face-to-face, phone, letters, meetings, social media, etc.)
• Are community partners represented at board meetings? (Hint: they should be!)
• Does your funding come from a variety of sources within (and outside) the community?
• How strong is your volunteer program? Strong volunteer programs can inject some fun and engaging new ideas to continue to motivate and encourage your supporters.
• Who attends important events? Do you get the right people at your events? That might include local and state elected officials, other boards and commissions, local philanthropists, business owners, tenants, or property owners.

Creating a successful Main Street partnership is a complex, challenging, and time-consuming task. To be effective, partnerships need to engage in a thoughtful process to define a vision and clear strategies. Main Street partnerships also need to draw from a broad range of perspectives and expertise — from inside the downtown as well as from other organizations and individuals within the community. Finally, Main Street partnerships need to connect, coordinate, and leverage resources from a variety of sources to support and continue their work.

The Honest Truth

Sometimes it helps to have someone outside of Main Street conduct your assessment. Often being so closely aligned with your organization doesn’t give you the space needed to be honest about the current condition of your relationships! Plus, more people thinking about how to help improve partnerships is always a good thing.