The Web-Based Partnership Self-Assessment Tool

For four years partnerships from all over the United States and beyond successfully used the web-based Partnership Self-Assessment Tool to assess how well their collaborative processes were working, as well as to identify specific areas to focus on to make their processes better. After making this Tool available free-of-charge for four years, the Center found it necessary to bring it offline on Friday, June 30, 2006 because the software platform upon which the Tool was constructed had become obsolete.

Using the Partnership Self-Assessment Tool Offline

Recognizing the popularity of the Tool and its usefulness to partnerships, we are making the questionnaire and action-oriented report available here with instructions for using the Tool offline. Below, you will find a brief overview of the Tool, with a rundown of who should use it and why. For partnerships interested in using the Tool, we are providing a Coordinator Guide, Instructions for Using the Tool Offline (including how to use the questionnaire as a pen and paper instrument and how to tabulate the results), the Tool Questionnaire, and the Tool Report. We strongly encourage you to read all the documents before initiating the Tool process at your partnership.

Brief Overview of the Tool

Coordinator Guide
Instructions for Using the Tool Offline
Tool Questionnaire
Tool Report

If you have a problem opening any of the documents below or have any questions about the Tool, please contact us at partnershiptool@nyam.org.

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Brief Overview of the Partnership Self-Assessment Tool

Why the Tool Was Developed
The Partnership Self-Assessment Tool was designed to help partnerships:

• Understand how collaboration works and what it means to create a successful collaborative process;
• Assess how well their collaborative process is working;
• Identify specific areas they can focus on to make their collaborative process work better.

What the Tool Measures
The Tool measures a key indicator of a successful collaborative process - the partnership's level of synergy. The Tool also provides information that helps partnerships take action to improve the collaborative process. It identifies the partnership's strengths and weaknesses in areas that are known to be related to synergy - leadership, efficiency, administration and management, and sufficiency of resources. It also measures partners' perspectives about the partnership's decision-making process, the benefits and drawbacks they experience as a result of participating in the partnership, and their overall satisfaction with the partnership.

Who Should Use the Tool
The Tool was designed to be used by partnerships for their own internal evaluation (it was not intended for use by external partnership evaluators). Although it is applicable to a broad range of partnerships, the Tool is not meant for partnerships at all stages of development or partnerships of all sizes. To use the Tool, a partnership needs to:

• Have been in existence at least six months;
• Be a group of people and organizations that continually work together to develop and modify strategies to achieve their goals;
• Have begun to take action to implement its plans;
• Have at least five active partners.

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