Building your partnership

The core feature of place-based digital inclusion is partnership. Successful initiatives rely on collaboration across sectors, recognising that digital inclusion is everyone's responsibility. How these partnerships form will vary, and there's no 'right' way to get started. Some examples of how this might work in practice:

• Expand an existing partnership: Build on a partnership or forum that already exists, especially if it has a focus on digital work. In Renfrewshire the existing 'DigiRen' network became the vehicle for delivering place-based digital inclusion.
• Formalise existing links: In communities across Scotland there are informal partnerships and working arrangements. These can be formalised to work together on a specific project or towards a shared outcome.
• Expand the scope of an existing partnership: In some cases there may already be a more formal partnership, but focused on a different issue. Consider if these partnerships can be leveraged to explore place-based digital inclusion e.g. community learning partnerships.
• Start from scratch: All great ideas have to start somewhere! You may be starting from the very beginning, and that's fine. Start mapping your potential stakeholders to get a better understanding of who you should be working with.

Who to involve

At SCVO we believe that we can't properly address digital exclusion unless everyone takes their share of responsibility. To fully embrace the spirit of place-based digital inclusion we need organisations from every sector in that community to contribute what they can. There's no definitive list, but ideally you should have participation from:

• Local government e.g. community learning and development teams
• Housing associations
• Health and Social Care Partnerships
• Libraries
• Voluntary sector organisations and community groups, including TSIs
• Private sector e.g. local businesses

Each organisation can bring something different and play to their strengths e.g. providing access to community spaces, providing access to free public wi-fi, providing staff or volunteers to help teach digital skills, or donate old IT equipment for refurbishment.

Whether the partnership is starting from scratch, or expanding on existing work, it would be useful to do some stakeholder mapping. This can help identify any gaps and areas where you may need to focus more attention - Stakeholder Mapping Template

In this video, Matthew from YMCA Tayside shares how they have built partnerships locally:

Leadership

Having a local contact, who is passionate about the work, is essential to drive it forward. Place-based activity by its nature needs to be driven by the place. The importance of a local lead who is passionate about the work, has the appropriate networks and the capacity to make change happen has proven itself to be effective in the places we've worked with. However, being local isn’t enough – passion, capacity and the ambition to drive change are equally important in ensuring that progress is made.

A critical friend

It is important that someone plays the role of ‘critical friend’ and is a neutral third-party in the development of place-based plans. Places supported by SCVO as a critical friend and facilitator have relayed how it has enabled them to share thinking and ideas and receive honest and informed feedback. The critical friend allows for a greater diversity of experience and can challenge thinking at a local level by external facilitation of discussion, bringing across shared learning and supporting understanding of ‘what works’. It furthermore supports capacity and workload issues faced by local leads. Our local lead in Renfrewshire in 2021 reflected:

Governance

As with any partnership, you will need to pay attention to your governance structures. Most place-based digital inclusion initiatives work fairly informally, with a lead partner who usually managers any resources. As a minimum, the partnership should have a Terms of Reference document that everyone subscribes to, setting out the key objectives of the partnership, how decisions are made and how frequently the partnerships convenes.

If there are resources allocated to the partnership, then more formal arrangements may need to be considered such as a formal partnership agreement that everyone signs up to. Particular attention should be paid to this is you are applying for funding, especially around eligibility criteria for different funds.

Some place-based digital inclusion projects centre around community or village halls, and you can read more about governance arrangements in our Village and Community Halls Guide, or explore governance more broadly in the SCVO Guide to Good Governance.