“Partnership with The Woodland Trust and National Museums Liverpool lends professional resources otherwise out of reach. And as we are the local Housing Association’s charity of the year, all of its maintenance team, chippies, electricians, brickies and plumbers are giving a week’s volunteering to help get the building shipshape. That sort of enthusiasm and vitality just can’t be bought.” Claire McDade

Extraordinary indeed. Far more than mere expedience, partnership is central to museums’ civic purpose and, moreover, imperative if we are to stay in tune with our communities.

To ensure that museums are central to people’s lives, ubiquitous, – on the web, in the classroom, in the workplace, in doctor’s surgeries, at festivals, in day centres, in tourism brochures, down the pub, and on the radio – as well as the familiar physical presence in our cities, towns and villages – then we need partnerships and we need them to be relevant, imaginative and dynamic.

Beyond friends and family.

“ Partnerships make extraordinary things happen. Take them away and Norton Priory would be a shadow of itself. Individuals, groups and communities are a vital part of our day to day life, running the cafe and tending the gardens.”Claire McDade, Director, Norton Priory & Museum

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The History of the World in 100 Objects, led by BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum, is one such ambitious partnership. The far-reaching project, via documentary, radio, learning and education outreach and web broadcasting – always had the role of regional museums and the importance of objects fully embedded.

“The idea of a ‘History of The World’ told through objects is audacious and it has been endlessly stimulating to see creative organisations – animated by public service – coming together.” Mark Damazer .

It is no exaggeration to say that a museum without productive partnerships will be isolated and vulnerable. Investing well in partnerships will bring strength and security. Yet, despite these good examples, we have been collectively guilty of seeing partnerships purely as a route to funding, relatively one-dimensional, short-term and skin-deep. One thing is clear, in this new climate, relationships without solid foundations and mutuality will not last to support a museum’s long-term survival.

At a time when government departments and the wider public sector are sharply refocusing, museums need to position themselves as open to and ready for partnership working, understanding that integration makes us more relevant, more successful at what we do and, crucially, more difficult to let go. We need to recognise that partnerships will be fluid, agile and diverse combinations, with each other, outside the sector and also with individuals, our users, visitors and benefactors.

Survival requires all museums to enter the frame, but it can demand time and skills that many smaller museums feel are out of reach. After all they don’t all have the resources of the British Museum to call upon, or do they? From Whitehaven’s Beacon, to Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery there are plenty of examples to prove that in the partnership game it is attitude rather than size that matters. Successful partnership working relies far more on can-do culture and leadership than on fixed resources. We each have a vision, collections, experts, opportunities, volunteers and supporters to mobilise and we are no longer restricted by the boundaries of boroughs or regions that may have previously prevented natural collaboration.

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Together we are stronger. Across the region the search is already on for the shared services, expertise, knowledge, people and ideas that will help us cope with the cuts that are coming our way, with significant progress already in Pennine Lancashire, in Greater Manchester and in Cheshire East. Large institutions will shrink, smaller ones will merge and self-help networks, collaborations and affiliations will emerge to fill the gaps.

In the North West we already have strong networks and experience to capitalise upon. Renaissance North West is the single biggest regional programme of investment based specifically on partnership, and will leave a great legacy of good practice to build upon. The Greater Manchester Emergency Response Team more than proved its value in the Cumbrian floods of 2009, helping Cumbrian Museums. More widely partnerships like the Preston Museums’ Hands-On Gang and Manchester Museums Consortium show how partnerships can make a greater impact than solo projects.

We are lucky to have a healthy national museum presence in the region to draw on. National Museums know that effective partnership working, sharing of status, collections and expertise will offer a lifeline to regional museums in hard times, but they have resourcing issues too and will partner where the outputs match their own ambitions. National Museums Liverpool recognises it has a special duty of care towards the region, particularly those museums whose values and belief in social justice match their own. Its scale and status brings to the region an international outlook and connections that others can’t replicate – drawing in new ideas and skills. The Imperial War Museum North and Tate Liverpool have significant footprints, powerful brands and an iconic presence to enhance the tourism offer, but they also deliver practical partnerships where agendas and ambitions merge, like the award-winning ‘intouch’ volunteer programme, or joined-up programming such as the recent Tate Klimt, Blackwell and Accrington arts and crafts partnership. Nationals’ support may be in professional development like NML’s support of the North West Fed or the Plus Tate programme. It might involve collections and activities like Artists Rooms (Tate: Manchester Art Gallery and Abbott

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Hall), History of the World (BM: across the region), The Mughal Tent (V&A:Blackburn Museum) as examples.

Forthcoming changes to Renaissance in the Regions create potential to consolidate a dynamic partnership for Manchester, a Core Museum which will bring together institutions, funders and stakeholders to directly support the city’s cultural ambitions and its regional role, driving economic recovery far beyond Greater Manchester boundaries. But it also raises questions about how to sustain the Museum Development Officer networks and other programmes. Transformation Funding dispersed across the region could achieve a new level of quality and distinctiveness – a fusion of local and national funding that has a tighter fit with local priorities and a platform for wider partnership funding.

Local partnerships will become increasingly important in a changing political landscape. A £1 billion Regional Growth Fund will help areas and communities particularly affected by public spending cuts. The newly formed Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) (Cumbria, City of Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Cheshire & Warrington) will bid for a share of this fund in order to encourage private sector growth. The region has 4 LEPs approved. All areas are covered with the exception of Lancashire. Their role and remit is being refined, but broadly they will be looking at ways to enhance employment and skills, tourism and the visitor economy, culture, housing and transport. There will also be some quasi-regional working where LEPs share inevitable priorities and boundaries. We can’t count on these for funding but we need to understand them and where we fit, get to know how the local LEP operates and make it our business to get on the radar.

Often less restrictive and more about building relationships, private sector partnerships can allow the museum to be creative, do things differently and make the most of the opportunity. For Creative Tourist no cash exchanged hands in a relationship with Arriva Trains, but both sides enjoyed many benefits. The campaign offered Arriva an attractive proposition – consistent, compelling reasons and programmes to promote leisure journeys to Manchester (and 1600 Arriva travellers entered a recent Creative Tourist competition) – and for Creative Tourist, prime

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space advertising on trains and in stations over a 2 year period.

Looking to philanthropic giving is a tactic that the government is keen to encourage. The extent to which it is a realistic prospect is somewhat unknown, but we need to challenge ourselves to try rather than assume defeat. After all most of our collections and institutions were founded on philanthropy, it is in our DNA. A recent report for Arts & Business confirms the potential for growth in this area. It lays down a challenge for all organisations to think in equal thirds for trade income, private investment and public funding and it shows that extending Friends Schemes alone could contribute millions more to the arts and heritage nationally.

Partnerships with business and high net worth individuals won’t all be about major giving. It will require advocacy and awareness raising, engaging high profile spokespeople for museums – for example Bonnie Greer’s opening of the Whitworth’s America exhibition. It will involve groundwork and research. Whilst some will give to art, collections and favourite institutions, most will give to support the impact we have on learning, health and well-being, economic growth, inclusion and fairness. Museums must be seen as key partners, whether in education, health, community issues or providing skills for employment .

Partnership delivers far more than icing on the cake as Kendal Museum discovered when threatened with closure. Collections and staff are now a key resource for Kendal College which has developed its own HE training offer, including a partnership with Staffordshire University and a Foundation Degree in Heritage.

Finally, perhaps it is our partnering with visitors and users that needs to come under most scrutiny.

Whilst most museums and galleries would define themselves as being for social purpose, too few have fully embraced what that means, preferring to still produce for and present to their users, rather than deeply engage, extend ownership and control. Thriving museums are loved by their communities: as Tony Butler, Director of the Museum of East Anglian Life

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puts it, “museums are connectors between people, objects and the environment in which they exist and it is this complex relationship which they should seek to portray.” An in depth analysis in the recent report ‘The challenge of co-production’ outlines the value of “delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbours. Where activities are co-produced in this way, both services and neighbourhoods become far more effective agents of change.”

Technology is a strong tool in developing more boundary free partnerships and reaching out for new relationships. The Ribchester Roman’s Facebook Group has 1,347 international members linked to the museum. By speaking in partnership Creative Tourist communicates with around 25,000 potential national and international culturally motivated visitors each month, and the DCMS sponsorship announcement resulted in such a Twitter storm at People’s History Museum that development staff had to respond quickly with opportunities for people to get involved.

The tools of technology aside, partnership building is a personality driven activity

The following steps will help:

One. Hard work is worth it

Unless you are really lucky partnerships don’t land on your doorstep, they take hard work and hard networking, fast follow-up, strong action and outcomes. When times are hard it can be tempting to put your time and resources elsewhere but the museums who will succeed will do so by making partnerships a key priority.

Two. Get advocates in your corner6

Every museum or consortium needs an advocate (or advocates) to help put them on the radar and access key decision makers. They need to be networked, knowledgeable and credible. Advocacy support is an investment that is vital to survival – look at opportunities to pool resources with other museums or develop roles that incorporate stronger advocacy focus.

Two. Understand potential partners’ priorities

Think not what your partners can do for the museum, but what the museum can do for its partners. Be knowledgeable on potential partners’ priorities and how the museum can tap into their needs and answer their problems. Understand who’s who and how you can get to know them better.

Three. Build constructive relationships

David Wilcox of Partnerships UK offers some simple ground rules for successful partnerships which emphasise the importance of respect, shared vision and compatible ways of working, flexibility, good communication, and collaborative, consensual decision-making. This shouldn’t mitigate against challenge however, as good relationships will engender trust and allow for risk taking.

Four. Be genuine and realistic

He also suggests some factors to avoid such as setting unrealistic goals or lack of clear purpose, partnering organisations with different values or ways of working, allowing the balance of power to be unequal, or the time and effort required outweighing the potential benefits.

Five. Get stuck in

If you see a potential opportunity for financial or in kind support that would make a difference to the museum’s long term survival, then make it happen. If your work is good, and you believe in your case then partners will come to share

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in what you have to offer them.

The challenge is for us to replicate the characteristics of on-line behaviour (networked, sharing, open, involving, egalitarian) in our off-line activities and relationships, and become more connected. To borrow from US museum thinker Nina Simon, as web 2.0 gets better the more people use it, so a museum gets better the more people participate in it.

Seeded question:

The idea of co-production has arrived in the UK and looks set to bring about fundamental change. Co-production isn’t just consultation, volunteering, participation or individual budgets although it might involve all of those things. Co-production has to be transformative, not just for the individuals involved but also for organisations. Public sector workers will need to change the way they think about their role, how they operate. Change how they see people from ‘users’ to partners. Move from fixers to facilitators. We should not pretend that we are already there, although we have much to offer up to this social movement. So, where is current good practice at in museums? What are the gaps and opportunities? Are we leaders or followers?

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