In order to engage coalition members, you have to know them. What are their interests? Where are their passions? Do they have capacity to participate in your work groups or teams? The more you can understand your coalition members and what is important to them, the better you can engage them in the coalition. It […]
Coalition Engagement Skill #3: Know your members’ interests and capacity Read More »
How many times have you been to a meeting and you can clearly see that one organization’s agenda is clearly more important than any other organization? How often have you experienced competition among members? When you are convening groups of people around a common purpose, someone needs to provide a neutral forum. In my experience,
Coalition Engagement Skill #2: Create a neutral forum Read More »
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’ Martin Luther King Jr. As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday today, we can learn a lot about coalition building from him and his work. As a leader, he knew how to build coalitions, engage his members and interacted positively with
Learning from a successful coalition leader Read More »
Since coalition work involves working with people, there will always be conflict. 🙂 Conflict can be helpful, healthy and can aid the coalition in making better collective decisions. Unresolved conflict can be very destructive to a coalition and can erode trust and engagement. Conflict may be related to coalition decision-making, priority setting or among member
Partnership Pitfall #10: Unresolved conflict Read More »
One of the best ways to energize your coalition toward collective action is to identify passionate champions who can provide leadership, inspiration and energy to accomplish the collective goals and objectives. Sometimes, these passionate champions can be very loud and insistent on their way. If “their way” aligns well with the coalition interest overall, that
Partnership Pitfall #9: Letting the loudest voices get their way Read More »
When we are leading a coalition, we can feel like we are always talking about what we are doing and can sometimes start to think that everyone else knows what we are doing too. 🙂 Even though we can be easily overwhelmed by emails, if there is infrequent and only occasional communication with only a
Partnership Pitfall #8: Under communicating Read More »
As a coalition, it can be easy to be overcommitted (which we talked about as our Partnership Pitfall #2). A related pitfall happens when we communicate to our partners and stakeholders that we can do more than we can actually do. In our enthusiasm (and sometimes our people-pleasing tendencies), we can communicate unrealistic expectations and
Partnership Pitfall #7: Overselling and Under delivering Read More »
This week’s pitfall is connected to last week’s post on self interest vs. group interest. If you have ever struggled with which logos to put on a document or whose name goes first on a document, you have likely experienced the challenge of “sharing credit.” If specific organizations attempt to take credit for the coalition’s
Partnership Pitfall #6: Taking credit vs. sharing credit Read More »
Happy Thanksgiving! This week’s post can apply to our coalition work and our family dynamics as well. 🙂 Coalition building is all about finding “win-win” opportunities for your coalition members and the coalition’s purpose. In order to attract organizations to be part of a coalition, there need to be clear benefits for each organization to
Partnership Pitfall #5: Self interest vs. Group Interest Read More »
Last week, we focused on the partnership pitfall of unrealistic expectations for coalition members. As you reflected on the types of roles that may be unrealistic, you may have realized that you also are experiencing the next “partnership pitfall” related to unclear roles and responsibilities. As a coalition leader, it is easy to “assume” that
Partnership Pitfall #4: Unclear roles and responsibilities Read More »