Partnership Agreement Guide

Defining the roles and responsibilities of partners provides a greater sense of ownership, accountability and collective responsibility over the project. It is helpful to have agreements among partners both in situations where money is involved (e.g. to deliver a funded project) and where money is not involved (e.g. services are being offered and exchanged.)

Each partnership agreement might be different and depend on the partners that are involved and the purpose of the partnership. Institutions may already have templates that are typically used when formalizing a relationship with another organization. This guide is meant to present the types of information that might be included in partnership agreements moving forward in order to better ensure effective, stable and impactful partnerships.

100 Males to College Pilot Projects are often based on new relationships and/or new and different approaches to enhancing opportunities that may have existed on limited bases or not at all. The project asks for organizations to think out of the box and push the boundaries of what has been the status-quo in order to better serve our most underrepresented students. This may be uncomfortable and difficult work, making the partnership development and solidarity piece extremely important. Thus, it is critical that partnerships start off strong and ready to take on the task at hand, versus potentially wasting valuable opportunities to make an impact on students by trying to figure out how to make the partnership work.

Consider the following as your partners are developing partnership agreement(s):

• Define the Partnership: Who are the key partners entering into agreement, which individuals will be held responsible on behalf of their entity, what is the purpose of the partnership, and what is the time period (explain how long the partnership is expected to continue.)?

• Contributions to the Partnership. It is critical that partners work out and record who is going to contribute funding or in-kind support, space, staffing, services, etc to the 100 Males to College project before it commences and describe specifically what the commitment entails. The partnership agreement should state how much funding or in-kind support each entity will contribute to program implementation. While not a preferred kind of partnership for college access activities, it should also be clear if one partner is acting solely as a fiscal sponsor/agent, and another is serving as the service deliverer so that it is clear on paper and everyone understands the nature of the partnership. For 100 Males to College, partners have been asked to commit a specific, deliverable set of “Promises” to the students of the pilot project. These items should be included as part of your discussion.

• Decision-Making. Discuss and decide how partners will make decisions, especially as it relates to maximizing the impact on students that are intended to be served by the pilot project, and how services will be vetted to meet the needs of the partners. For example, will a unanimous vote of all partners be required for every program and budgetary decision, such as the decision to invest more resources on one particular aspect of your pilot, or dissolve the relationship with a particular vendor? Alternatively will one partner act as the major decision maker and allow individual partners to make minor decisions on their own? (In that case, the partnership agreement should describe what constitutes a major or minor decision.)

• Roles and Responsibilities. Describe the partnership management structure and what the roles and responsibilities of the individual partners will be. For example, who will supervise the mentors/coaches assigned to high school students? Who will deal directly with students and families? Who will negotiate and get buy-in from other personnel within the organization? Who will manage outputs and outcomes? Who will recruit students and other program beneficiaries? Who will collect evidence for monitoring purposes? Think through the management needs of the partnership and be sure that all aspects are covered.

• Communications. How often will partners meet (e.g. weekly, month, quarterly) and who will compile and send out reports between meetings? Are there other individuals who might need to be looped in and at the table to facilitate the project’s functioning? If so, who is responsible for seeing this through? (E.g. If the partnership agreement involves a school Principal, do communications include the head of guidance and does it set the parameters for the involvement of all parties in service delivery?)

• Data. Delineate your needs in terms of data sharing within your agreement and who will be responsible for providing the data as well as tracking. Data is a tool for both evaluating inputs as well as outputs for the project.

• Fiscal Resolution. Determine how financial transactions are made and the process for payment.

• Negotiating Differences. Occasional differences of perspective may occur in partnerships. While they can often be resolved directly and between individuals, there should be a plan or point person for helping when this is not the case.

• Dissolution. Figure out now what will happen if one of the partners does not want to be involved anymore. What strategy might be in place to perhaps end or reinvent the partnership with the least disruption to the goals/objectives of the program, and more importantly to the students and families being served. The time to figure out exit strategies is at the beginning when everyone is working to make the college access and success activities take shape.