Program Goal K
This program goal describes how important it is to partner and collaborate with others to achieve mutual goals. Collaborations and partnerships refer to working together to provide services and outreach to the community. These partnerships include formal agreements, goals, and outcomes measurement (Shaffer, 2020). Working collaboratively with other groups, either non-profit or for-profit is necessary to solve today’s complex social problems. It is important to acknowledge the perspective of all stakeholders within a community in order to make real change. Furthermore, it is important to do sufficient research and develop services and initiatives that will enhance the community through strategic partnerships (Shaffer, 2020). To achieve competency in this program goal, I worked on assignments that helped me understand how to formally research potential partnerships and special projects, how to plan for execution, and how to request resources by communicating effectively and applying persuasion and influence.
During my first semester, in the course GSBA 502: Management Communication for Leaders, I worked on a team grant proposal where we researched a grant that could help fund a special library. My partner and I chose a special organizational library for a non-profit organization in Orange County, California called Mercy House. This assignment taught me how to gather information on an organization, how to plan a project, compile the information together in an organized manner, and write about it persuasively to another party. In this memo, I discussed how Mercy House has been impactful to the community and how building a library for their organization would allow them to help more people in their mission to eradicate homelessness in the community. Furthermore, in this assignment, we identified potential grants, such as the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that could assist in building the physical infrastructure of the library and fund for the library’s start-up materials (Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants, n.d.). I demonstrated competency in this program goal, as in writing this grant proposal I applied persuasion and influence through proposed collaboration and relationship-building.
Another assignment that helped me demonstrate my competency in this program goal was during LIM591B: Research and Applications. In this course, I worked on a team of five on a business case and presentation where we developed a solution to remodel a computer center for the Science and Engineering Library at USC. This assignment prompted us to build a budget and implementation plan and include a work breakdown structure and dictionary for all the tasks of the project. Although hypothetical, this assignment taught me how to collaborate with a team and plan a significant project together from start to finish. We were each tasked to work on a different section of the project, but we still needed each other’s help in finishing our sections. As a team, we could not finish the budget or implementation plan without knowing the information on the hardware we needed to buy and the shipping costs of the hardware. As a team, we set our regular, internal deadlines so we could discuss the next steps and finish the project and put together the presentation. Working on this assignment with my team taught me the value of collaboration and relationship-building. Collaboratively, we were able to finish the business case and presentation. I demonstrated my competency in this program goal by learning how to accomplish projects, through networking, collaboration, and relationship-building.
I also demonstrated my competency in this program goal during my LIM563: Partnerships and Collaborations in Libraries. In this course, I wrote a strategic partnership proposal between the Pasadena Public Library and the South Pasadena Arts Council. In my proposal, I presented a background of the current program for children at the Public Library and a recommendation and rationale for why a partnership with the Arts Council would be beneficial for both parties. This assignment helps me demonstrate my competency in this program goal, as in my proposal I applied persuasion and influence. I applied persuasion and tried to influence a new network and collaboration between two organizations with matching values.
To demonstrate competency in this program goal, you must apply persuasion and influence through networking, collaboration, and relationship-building. First, I demonstrate my competency of this program goal in my grant proposal to fund a special library for the Mercy House organization. Next, I demonstrated my ability to collaborate and network while working on a business case and presentation to remodel a computer center for the Science and Engineering Library. Lastly, in my Partnership proposal, I applied persuasion and tried to influence a new collaboration between two organizations. These assignments taught me how to do research on a community and its needs and how to develop services and initiatives that will enhance their experience. By mastering this skill, I have learned to collaborate with other individuals, teams, and organizations as well as how to communicate problems and possible solutions in different forms, which is needed to solve the world’s complex social problems.
References
Shaffer, G. (2020). LIM563 Partnerships and Collaborations in Libraries [Syllabus]. Los Angeles, Ca: MMLIS, University of Southern California.
Infrastructure and Capacity Building Challenge Grants. (n.d.). National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Retrieved from https://www.neh.gov/grants/preservation/infrastructure-and-capacity-building-challenge-grants
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