Jay; My main task, in the pre-retirement special assignment I am now in, is to rebuild our relationships with museums and other institutions across the country and abroad. For years, our museum did very little to assist other museums (a select few excepted), especially in the area of lending them artifacts from our large collection, even though our physical exhibitions space was so limited that we could show barely 1% of the collection at one time! I cannot tell you how many complaints I have had that, in the past, our senior staff couldn't even be bothered to acknowledge their requests, let alone respond to them! Beginning in February, we set out to change all that, with the result that we have signed partnership agreements or are signing them with almost 100 institutions, including some in the USA, Australia, Belgium and the UK. I am now starting to get letters that are much more positive, in some cases complimentary, so I know we are turning things around. Our most significant success story to date has been the development of exhibitions each summer on our courtyard, in partnership with the Canadian Forces. We had carried out two trial runs, one to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the establishment of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery and the other (much smaller) on demining. On the strength of the success of the first of these, I made a presentation to the then-acting Chief of the Defence Staff, who had a MAJOR national public relations problem, stemming from a series of incidents that put the military in, as many of us thought, an unfairly negative position. I suggested that we use our very prominent location in the national capital region to change that - by presenting not merely the equipment items (which ultimately included complete aircraft, a large tank for naval clearance diving demonstrations, etc.), but what was much more important to our visitors AND to the Forces - the MEN AND WOMEN of today's Canadian Forces - to show the public that they were NOT all the idiots and scoundrels painted by the media. We would present the men and women of yesteryear INSIDE the museum and the Forces would showcase their contemporaries OUTSIDE. We could offer a prominent venue, but we had no money to use it effectively. They had limited money, running to at least of a couple of hundred thousand dollars and the deployment of, at any one time, twenty to thiry full time personnel. The joint project was a huge success. This summer's project included artifacts from our own collection and focussed on the 75th anniversary of the naval reserves in Canada. Next year, we will jointly pay tribute to the air force. What are the ingredients of a successful joint venture? I think there are at least three. The first, and perhaps most important, is good communications. We make the relationship clear to all parties by signing a formal memorandum of understanding and cooperation. We keep in constant touch at all stages of the project and we share our problems and successes. There is no substitute for effective communications; it underpins EVERYTHING! I write and call our partners frequently, just to keep in touch and, more than once, people have told me how isolated they felt and how good it was simply to know that someone in another institution was interested in them. Second, both parties have to see that a joint project could yield results they could get no other way. We are beginning to develop a program of small travelling exhibitions, keyed to the space availabilities and needs of our smallest partners. WE need to get our exhibitions and artifacts to Canadians everywhere (and we'd loan these exhibitions to institutions elsewhere), but we don't have venues across the country. Our partners are starved for temporary exhibitions, but in most cases lack the resources to create these. Together, we can do a lot for both our publics. The corollary of the second point is that each partner must have something special to contribute that the other partner does not, be it space, resources, artifacts, a different visitor population, or what have you. One sided partnerships don't last long. Finally, you have to have a commitment from management and staff at all levels and across both institutions. It is only when everyone enters into the spirit, that cooperation can work. From our director on down, our people are working positively and responsively to create and strengthen our new relationships. Is this communications? Yes, but more important, it is a matter of ATTITUDE. Harry > ---------- > From: Staff[SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > Reply To: Museum discussion list > Sent: Monday, October 26, 1998 6:43 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Collaboration: Successes & Failures > > Fellow listers: > > I am chairing a panel discussion on collaboration & partnerships for the > upcoming state museum conference and thought I would enlist your help. > Please share a story, happy or sad, success or failure, about > collaborations with other instiutions. They need not be other museums--if > you collaborated with a business or another not-for-profit--I would like > to > hear that story too. And finally, what are the two or three biggest > factors in creating succesful collaborations/partnerships? What are the > biggest factors that lead to their failur (or rather I should say "lack of > success")? > > You can reply to the list or to me personally at > > [log in to unmask] > > Thanks for your help. I can't wait to hear your stories! > > Jay Smith > Executive Director > Reno County Museum > Hutchinson, Kansas >