Making sure you have the right potential partners is crucial if you are seeking to create something new (See also:  Partner and collaborate with others). These partners will be on a transformative journey with you, so alignment of incentives and clarity of purpose and drivers for collaboration is critical.

As well as aligning objectives and incentives and carrying out due diligence,  it is also important to consider howpotential collaborations and partnerships might be viewed, not only by the communities affected by crises, but also by other humanitarian stakeholders.

When partnering we recommend that you look at the problem you have identified and review your capabilities to develop a solution for this problem. You may have knowledge gaps in innovation management, technical specialities, or in the humanitarian sector or particular operational environments.

Once you have decided where your capability gaps are, you can start the search for relevant partners who might bring complementary expertise and experience, and help you develop a solution. There are plenty of established methodologies for searching and identifying the right partners, and it is crucial that you spend time assessing whether the partners are the right ones for you.

You also need to keep in mind that you will need different partners for different stages of the innovation journey. The right partners for developing an idea will not necessarily be the right partners for helping to pilot it, and the partners you require to pilot an idea might not be the ones who help you scale it.

Further inspiration

L Potter, I Gray, P Masters (2017) Does MSF need a more intelligent/empathetic approach to partnerships?, MSF Sweden Innovation Unit
Reflections on how MSF approaches partnerships in its innovation work

I Gray, M Hettiarachchi (2014) Lessons from the frontline of Humanitarian and Technology Company Partnerships, The Journal of Partnership Brokering
Insights, lessons learned and recommendations from working across the ICT and Humanitarian nexus

GSMA (2016) Partnership Guidelines: Building effective relationships between MNOs and NGOs in complex environments and crises
A review existing best practice on partnership development between MNOs and NGOs/third parties

Elrha (2011) Guide to Constructing Effective Partnerships
A resource to support collaboration between humanitarian and academic organisations