Joan Roberts Consulting

You hear it all the time. For a collaborative to become successful there needs to be a high level of trust amongst its members. I agree. Trust is needed for collaborative members to share important and relevant information and work out issues that cross their organizational boundaries.

But what exactly is trust? It can be an elusive concept. Trust is an emotion or a feeling held by an individual based on observations, facts and gut instinct that tells you that you can rely on a person, product or process to do what it is supposed to do.

In a collaborative we are relying on each other to do what we are supposed to do. And if we can't deliver on our commitments then we need to talk about why and then figure out how to the task done.

Yet you must often compete with other collaborative members for funding or profile — so how you can trust a competitor? This often is the crux of the problem.

Despite being competitors, private and nonprofit sector organizations often find ways to work together. It is the only way industry standards ever develop. Private sector competitors join together in industry associations to work together on common causes like industry standards and regulatory frameworks. Nonprofits cooperate in a similar manner in sector organizations that advocate on behalf of their members.

Despite remaining competitors, trust can develop when collaborative members do what they promise, and hold each other accountable when they don't. Holding each other accountable means communicating that something wasn't done and a conversation is held about what to do next. It might feel like confrontation and is not easy but it's essential to achieve common goals.

So to build a high level of trust, we need to follow up on our promises and communicate honestly and openly.

To read more go to:

http://www.charityvillage.com/cv/research/rpart14.html