Beyond Consensus: Improving Collaborative Planning and Management

6. Sustaining Collaboratives

6 Sustaining Collaboratives This book focuses on collaborative efforts that involve ongoing implementation with adaptation based on feedback. The form of these ongoing collaboratives will vary. Some are community-based entities that depend entirely on volunteers. Some collaboratives are associations or nonprofit organizations with employees. Other collaboratives are “sponsored” by one or more organizations through funding or staff secondment. Finally, some are created as government-based collaborative organizations or “collaborative superagencies” (Sabatier, Focht et al. 2005). As ongoing entities, all collaboratives face a range of challenges in sustaining their efforts. In discussing a collaborative’s ongoing role, it is important to recognize that a group may change after the consensus-building phase. In particular, a group that operates at one level in the action-organization-policy spectrum during the consensus -building process may “downshift” to a different level during implementation. In the Lower Wisconsin River case, for example, an intensive, policy level deliberation led to new state legislation, but a regional coordinator and a riverway board direct an ongoing collaborative focused at the organizational level. In these kinds of situations, there is still an ongoing, adaptive management role, but it is focused on the coordination of organizations implementing new policies. Although activities have shifted to an organizational level, there still remains a need for an ongoing entity to support implementation. One of the implicit assumptions with this discussion is that these collaboratives should continue. Clearly, this is not always the case. Some groups may be ineffective or inefficient. Collaboratives therefore must also be judged on their ability to achieve results, which is explored in more detail in chapter 10. The underlying assumption of this chapter is that the collaborative is worth sustaining. 146 Chapter 6 What Do Ongoing Collaboratives Look Like? Because collaboratives exist in a range of forms, it is helpful to describe some typical examples. This is not an exhaustive list, but looking at these cases helps illustrate the issues they face. Volunteer Groups: Cloncurry Landcare Group In his book on Landcare, Campbell describes community-based efforts that emerged in Australia to address land and water conservation. One of the groups he profiles is the Cloncurry Landcare group in Queensland (Campbell 1994). Its history, structure , and organizational issues are typical of many Landcare groups. Cloncurry is a remote and sparsely populated place in a region dominated by beef cattle on grazing (ranching) properties ranging from 15,000 to 200,000 hectares (approximately 37,000 to 494,000 acres). The group emerged from a meeting called by the Cloncurry Shire Council (the local municipality), but it was led by a group of people who agreed to participate on a steering committee. The leader of the group was Daniel “Bood” Hickson, who is typical of some of the Landcare leaders I have met. He is involved in many other community organizations , tends to think outside the box, and was willing to personally confront bureaucrats to make his case. At one point the group had over 150 members who were addressing several different issues in the region. Over time, however, the group faced declining attendance and burnout issues. The chronic shortage of people means that the same people are committed to several different organizations, for example the Country Women’s Association, Cattlemen’s Union, United Graziers Association, Show Society, Rotary, Isolated Children and Parents Association etc, and simply have neither time nor resources to give meaningful support to another organization. (ibid., 86) The declining attendance and time constraints of the group led it to refocus on fewer issues. The group exists today under the umbrella of the Southern Gulf Natural Resources Management Organization.1 These new regional natural resources management organizations were created by the Australian government to increase problem-solving capacity at the regional level. Associations or Nonprofits: Long Tom Watershed Council The Long Tom Watershed Council is a collaborative group focused on restoring watershed health in Oregon’s Southern Willamette Valley. Through my role as a board member, I gained new insights into collaboratives not just as a movement or process but also as an organization with employees, budgets, work plans, and contracts. Sustaining Collaboratives 147 Like many collaboratives, the Long Tom is more than just a forum for bringing together diverse stakeholders. It is an ongoing entity that must secure resources to employ its 2.5 employees, support an office, pay for travel and supplies, and maintain communication with stakeholders and...