Working Group: Partnerships and Co-productions

Problem Statement

GV has a number of partnerships with whom we work in an ad hoc manner. How can we improve on this?

Desired Outcomes

Develop a framework that will allow us to do partnerships and co-productions more efficiently and effectively. Considerations will include staffing, content presentation, design.

The purpose of this working group was to discuss partnerships and co-productions in Global Voices Online in two fronts: 1 – describe the current scenario and list active partnerships; 2 – collect community insights, draft guidelines and share success stories.

Conclusions Reached

The group gathered via e-mail and posted updates on a Google doc. In addition to the group discussion, consultations were made with Sahar Ghazi, Sara Moreira and Eddie Avila, to whom we are grateful for the insights.

Here are our key findings:

Amplify & Attract: partnerships and co-productions are established strategies within GV, but how aware is the Community about the alternative types of partnerships currently active within GV? The Summit is the opportunity to share that info and also to discuss whether and how to amplify our content and how to attract new content producers, new partners and, ultimately, new readers.

Raising awareness on the steps and the intentions surrounding a partnership can be the call to action for the Community to get more involved in this process and present prospects that, without a bridge, would be very difficult to spot amidst info overload.

Career-paths: the role of a partnership coordinator was mentioned again. Referring back to the 2012 Summit Internal Meeting Notes, there were discussions involving partnerships, career-paths and incentives in the Training, Mentorship and Career-paths group. It is time to reassess the subject and discuss if GV should create a position dedicated to partnership management, monitoring and follow-up.

Ask the audience: are there career paths for translators and authors that you would like to suggest/pursue?

Alternative revenue models: partnerships can be an alternative source of revenue. The idea of directing the capillarity of GV´s writing and translation powers to activate campaigns and other activities related to our mission was mentioned. One example is something in the line of a “sponsor a story” program, in which GV would get revenue while aiding a given organization by crafting or curating stories that would then be translated into other languages.

Communication: there is a knowledge base spread across regional teams and GV´s Core regarding experiences, dos and don'ts, minutes and even people who would help one craft MoUs and avoid common mistakes. Channels for communication can be established in order to foster that information exchange. Is the Community´s desire to actively promote new partnerships?

Evaluation: it is necessary to define a set of metrics that are capable of demonstrating how things with a given partnership are going. Are the relationships working for us and for our partners? Can we leverage more on these partners and what they bring to the table? Are we delivering on what we promised or are our partners unhappy with the relationship?

At this point, it would be good to work along the audience and listen to some of the impressions regarding current partnerships, personal experiences working in one of the partner projects and inputs on how to improve this strategy.

As an ending, a practical example of partnership was mentioned recently and we deemed a good example to share. Global Voices does engage in campaigns supporting detained bloggers. Is there some sort of partnership with Human Rights organizations that are able to fund those campaigns? And what if those actions also raised money to aid bloggers with court fees?

Next steps

Submitted by: Luis Henrique and Prudence Nyamishana