Collaboration Benefits is the national support service, funded by Capacitybuilders until April 2011, which aims to promote and support collaborative working.  The programme is run by a partnership, led by bassac.  The other national partners are ACRE, Community Foundations Network (CFN) and the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR).  The overall function of the programme is to provide awareness-raising, resource material and training in facilitating collaboration. It is also supporting a number of individual clusters of organisations wishing to benefit from joint working.  

A programme of awareness-raising seminars has been conducted round the country and the partner organisations are continuing to promote the programme through their respective workstreams.

Generic train-the-trainer courses started in March 2009, aimed at individuals in networks that support community organisations. Successful participants are now going on to provide local training courses for development workers who work with front line groups.  

A significant and growing collection of resources and case studies around collaborative working is now available on the bassac Collaboration Benefits website

ACRE is delivering a significant, separate strand of Collaboration Benefits devoted to joint working between institutions and organisations within an individual rural community – the ‘parish partnership’ model. Click here to read more about this.

Our delivery programme is designed to roll out from within the Rural Community Action Network (RCAN), to provide maximum benefit for RCAN members.  ACRE’s strand uses and contributes to the overall knowledge base on collaboration and is subject to the same programme framework, so it is well connected into the main programme.

ACRE’s Collaboration Benefits programme
ACRE has recruited 5 Programme Associates, from 5 rural community councils, to help us deliver the programme.  We aim to deliver 3 outcomes for RCAN and rural communities:

• Practical demonstration of what can be achieved through joint working between parish councils and local community-based organisations by collaborating and sharing resources, for instance on fundraising capacity, volunteers, skills and use of assets
• Financial benefit to RCAN members through a generic national programme
• Skills in the network which are marketable both to rural communities and to the generic arena covering support for effective collaborative working.

The 5 Programme Associates are each recruiting individual communities to become demonstration clusters under the programme.  The clusters will be formally evaluated and lessons learned will be shared throughout the network.
The Programme Associates have also participated in a formal train- the- trainer course. Each Associate will now go on to deliver the 2-day cascaded training course within their region/area, aimed at RCAN staff and other practitioners in the field. To access the latest course information, dates and booking form please follow the links below -

Training Course Flyer | Booking form

The skills gained will be particularly relevant to ongoing rural work on advocacy, support for community buildings, delivering youth and transport services and new projects responding to local needs.  As they are based on the generic programme, the training provided is acknowledged as the equivalent of the overall collaboration benefits courses and will enable development workers who attend the courses to have a recognised skill in supporting all types of collaborative activity in rural and urban areas. 

The five RCAN Programme Associates are:

The ACRE programme manager is Helen Mardell at ACRE on h.mardell@acre.org.uk