Successful partnerships can drive an organisation’s innovation, expand reach and improve outcomes.

Commercial partnerships expert and economist Dr Ian Pringle says the key to a successful partnership is setting clear goals, maintaining transparent and regular communication, being adaptable.

“A strategic partnership is really a cooperative arrangement between two or more organisations with a common purpose of advancing each other’s goals,” Dr Pringle said.

“This could involve sharing resources, knowledge, or capabilities in order to expand service offerings and increase growth. And this growth and expansion is a clear sign of a healthy organisation,” he said.

Dr Pringle said it important to build the right kind of relationships.

“Obviously, it is important to build strategic partnerships. But forming this kind of relationship isn’t just about reaching out to any organisation ort business.

“It’s about choosing the right partners who share similar objectives and values as your organisations.

“Once you’ve done that, it’s about asking the question ‘How can we form an effective strategic partnership that works for both of us?”

Dr Pringle identified some strategies to achieve successful partnerships.

These include: identify potential partners with shared values and complementary skills; reaching out and proposing the idea of a partnership or collaboration; defining clear roles, responsibilities, and benefits for each partner, and; establishing an open line of communication and maintain it faithfully.

“One thing I have learned is that good partnerships are always bigger than the sum of their parts,” Dr Pringle said.

AMES Australia has successfully built several important partnerships that have delivered benefits for its clients and for partner organisations.

One of these successful partnerships is with Parks Victoria at Werribee Park, in Melbourne’s west.

What started about ten years as a community garden project for local Karen refugees to be able to grow their own food has turned into so much more.

The Working Beyond the Boundaries project has delivered improvements in health and wellbeing for local refugee communities and employment opportunities for more than 150 people in the local horticulture industry.

Now, it has also spawned a project that grows and distributed food to local disadvantaged families – which proved a godsend for so many people during the COVID lock downs.

It has also resulted in the ‘Park Walks’ program, which sees newly arrived refugees introduced to Victoria’s national parks.

Parks Victorian have reported an in increase in numbers of people from diverse communities visiting Victoria’s Parks as a result of its partnership with AMES.

AMES’ partnership with the Engineering Pathway Industry Cadetship (EPIC) program has seen more than 50 refugees and asylum seekers placed into jobs supporting Victoria’s ‘big build’.

The partnership has meant that projects such as the Metro Tunnel, the Rail Crossing Removal Project and the Westgate Tunnel gain access to workers whose skills are in short supply.