Who Are Our Respondents?

We were able to gather feedback and suggestions from 17 partners from the different field offices. Most of our partners who participated in the survey came from the National Capitol Region (47%) and followed by Eastern Visayas (23.5%). The remaining respondents came from Region 6, 12, CARAGA, ARMM and CALABARZON.

The respondents were a good mix of national and community-based organizations, with some representation coming from an international organization, a research/academic institution and a government partner. Their experience working with SCP centers on the themes of Child Rights Governance (10 of 17 partners), Child Protection (6), Child Poverty (3), Disaster Risk Reduction (2) and Education (1).

How Did We Do?

In the survey, the respondents were asked a set of questions adopted from the Partnership Survey in 2016 rolled out by SCI’s Partnership Working Group. The survey focused on the support partners received, which ones were most and least useful, and what support they will need in the future.  Additional questions from the Country office on the over-all quality of relationship and recommendation for improvements were also asked.

Partnership Excellence

It is heartening to receive the feedback that 48% of the respondents rated our partnership service as an organization as Excellent. Meanwhile 29% rated SCP as above average. To justify these ratings, highlights of open-ended comments include emphasis on the good relationship with Save the Children staff and their readiness to assist in various aspects of the partners’ work. Communications were described as open and issues are dealt with in a very professional way. They consider SC PHL as a transparent organization, and practice the consultative process in decision-making.

On the other hand, the remaining percentage of respondents rate SC PHL as average to middling as a partner. Comments that may justify these ratings include comments on interpersonal relationship being good, but not yet the best, and the number of adjustments that needs to be made especially in terms of systems and work methods of each organization.

How Can We Be Better?

Partners recommend that SC PHL continue to keep the open communication, and strengthen it with regular meetings and consultations. They encourage the organization to continue to endeavor to respect policies, procedures and systems of the partners, and be more flexible in the processes involved in working together. They also hope to receive more technical assistance on financial standards. Another great suggestion is for SC PHL to have a common plan and present it as a holistic package to its common strategic partners to improve complementation. This will help allay confusion amongst partner agencies (especially with the national government agencies) when dealing with the organization.

What Does This Mean?

After hearing from our partners on what we do well, and how we can even do better, all SC PHL units involved in partnerships are being challenged to step up their game by directly addressing the bottlenecks of how we work with partners. This also means that for SC PHL should consider the following to truly excel as an organization:

• * Keeping in mind the partners’ context and following participatory principles in our ways of working
• * Consolidate our assets, turn them into a complementing package to present a strong unified organization to our strategic partners
• * Take a look how we can further provide necessary support in terms of Thematic Capacity, MEAL and OCD.

Moving forward into 2018, the partnership team is excited to work with the program offices in responding appropriately to feedback from partners and in strengthening overall partnership management that will benefit both SC PHL and the partner organization.