In order to develop and manage effective partnerships, practitioners need a specific set of professional partnering capabilities: a mindset for collaboration; understanding of how other societal sectors think and work; human relationship and trust-building skills along with facilitation and negotiation; and a technical knowledge of partnerships from the building blocks of collaboration to what needs to be in a partnering agreement.

TPI has helped to professionalize the partnering practice of countless individuals around the world. We have directly trained over 8,000 people through open or tailored in-person or facilitated online courses. Over 20,000 people have undertaken self-guided trainings through our various partnerships with the UN System Staff College, with UNDESA and with Philanthropy University. Further, our tools and guidebooks have been downloaded an estimated 130,000 times.

In addition, our material has been integrated by organisations around the world into their own trainings and internal guidance. For example, World Vision has built the capacity of several thousand staff through their local partnership training programmes, developed with TPI. UNICEF has incorporated TPI tools into its internal partnership guidance for staff. And the SDG Partnership Guidebook, developed with the UN, is now being used as the standard manual by UN Country Offices around the world.

Certification

TPI’s optional Certificate in Partnering Practice has allowed multiple individuals who have undertaken TPI courses, or certified other organisations’ courses, to gain a recognised qualification in effective partnering.

“I’ve participated in a number of partnership courses, but this is the best yet! Whatever stage you’re at in a partnership process from planning to setting-up and beyond, this course is essential. Over five sessions, you get the structured clarity you need to explore, design, and manage a partnership and lead it to success!” – 2022 Course Participant

Great course. Meeting other participants was the most valuable. The course was really well structured, with clear objectives and it was thoroughly well managed. I thought the console was very professional with fantastic use of online tools – I really liked the use of Menti with online drawing with Powerpoints an group work etc. – at points I thought it was even more interactive than some face-to-face trainings I have been on.” – 2022 Course Participant

Impact

Participants of courses consistently reported the following impact on their own partnering practice:

• Improved confidence to partner
• More strategic and systematic in partnering
• Improvement in the quality of working relationships within partnerships

And on their organisation’s partnering:

• More effective at developing and managing partnerships (91%*)
• Achieving greater impact for the organisation from its partnering (91%*)

And on the partnerships they were involved in:

• Greater value for their organisation’s partners (87%)
• Greater partnership impact by being more efficient / effective  (87%*)

*Independent survey undertaken 2021