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Track A Community Partnership Project Script and Questions 01
Track A Community Partnership Project Script and Questions 01
Module: 7
Assignment: Community Partnership Research Project, Track A
Hello and thank you for taking the time to allow me to interview you today. Before we
get started, please share your
● Name Reed Steele
● Organization Partners in Education
● Title Director of Career Readiness & College & Career, Ready.Set.Go
“Our title is Partners in Education. We partner with organizations and other non-
profit organizations and business and community organizations. Together we
combine all of our skills in one mainstream to help our students. Our goal is to
help students prepare for high school and then careers, but not everyone is ready
for college or even college bound.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
● Can you please share how your partnership has advanced the mission of your
organization?
“If it weren’t for our partners we wouldn't be anywhere. Our goal is to broaden our
horizon and show them what is available to them and that is career opportunities.
We work with several universities around the area and other businesses to show
our students what is available to them. We bring them into those organizations to
show them what is available to them. If we didn’t have our partners, where could
we take them?” (Reed Steele, 2022).
“Some of them do and some of them don’t. We have some groups where they will
represent their business and we step in there and we log the hours and
representation. When it comes to promos we have all of our sponsors, supporters
and partners listed.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
“Then we will go back to the MOU which is a great tool for managing the
responsibilities for everybody. The MOU is broken down into various parts;
purpose and scope, terms (when we start and finish), our responsibilities and
what our partner’s responsibilities are (what they’re expected to do), payments
and of course modification and termination if needed. When we go through this
we work together to create a schedule of what it will look like. I have six
education specialists and I assigned a specialist to that school to be the liaison
and the communicator and teach the curriculum that has already been set.” (Reed
Steele, 2022).
● Please describe a few of the challenges that your organization has faced during
its partnerships, and how did it overcome the challenges?
“For any non-profit organization is funding. You’ve got a great program with a
great cause and purpose and is successful. But when it comes to non-profit
organizations the funding doesn’t come all the time from purchases of services.
Some of our schools can make those purchases, but many don’t. Grant funding is
important. Corporate sponsorship is important. Private donors is important. One
of the biggest challenges is to get enough money to do what you do. To get the
funds to do what you do. Without that, it’s easy. Some do really well, some have
foundations, like the Toledo Zoo, they get the funding easily because they get the
media attention and they get the money. We in Partners in Education we’re a little
hole in the wall. We work with eighteen schools and in my program we’ve got
about twenty-five thirty schools. So the biggest challenge is probably funding,
that was a long way to get to that answer.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
● How do you communicate with partners? Does your organization use email,
newsletters, websites, conference calls, and/or any other tools?
“We use email, telephone communication and zoom meetings and remote
teaching and communication, we also meet directly.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
“Let’s take it on two different levels, within ourselves and in our office. We have
six education specialists and 18 schools. A full time position is eighteen to
twenty sections. We add it all up to be about a forty hour work week. We split it
up depending on what that person is. We have some full-time people and we have
some part-time people. We distribute the duties compared to what their level is
whether their full-time, part-time or even seasonal or whatever the case may be.
Outside of the office we have different people in charge for different events.
Because they’re volunteers, we don’t want to over-work them or burn them out.
We have other people from other businesses or even from the same business to
work that event and they share the responsibilities within our partnership and
within their company. We also have career speakers and they come into the
classroom during the day and we have them speak about their career path and
the journey that it took them on.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
“Yes. Yes on a regular basis. I have a procedure here for an evening event and
every single one of our education specialists does two evening events. And we
have a checklist and each one has their own duty and responsibility and
particular things that they’re supposed to do for that event.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
“We hire professionals. We have a system in place where when people are hired
there is usually a ninety day probation period. Let’s see if it works out, let's see if
it’s what they want. If they’re not happy they’re not going to make the students
happy they’re not going to be successful in what they’re doing. If they’re happy
and they’re good at what they do but they don’t know a specific thing that they’re
supposed to do then that’s on me. My job is to make sure everything is trained
properly. If we miss out on something we will reevaluate and take it step-by-step
to make sure that they have got it down. Really I haven’t had to go much further
than that.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
“I wouldn’t say we evaluate the partnership, I would say we just have the
partnership. If the partnership works we keep it. I don’t know if we have ever said
that this partnership isn’t working out on paper and have canceled it. We have
sunsets where there is a start and ending time. It’s not simply that it’s not
working out, it’s just done, it’s completed. As far as partnerships with our
schools the MOU tells us the end of the time, which is the sunset time. It’s
evaluated by the final report given to that partner to demonstrate the end results.”
(Reed Steele, 2022).
“Every single one of ours is its own individual answer. I will say each year we
have an ending date and then we usually pick it up in the next year in a new
partnership. We have continuing partnerships with many businesses and many
colleges and many private [community] organizations.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
“We all grow. We have an idea and we have a mission and we find out that when
we partner with somebody they have a similar mission. So if our missions are
blended together we grow faster. If our missions are partly blended together we
utilize each other in just an aspect of our mission.” (Reed Steele, 2022).
“And there could be several reasons for a partnership to end. One, is the mission
was completed. Two, the date of termination was predetermined, the sunset.
Another might be the services of us or them might not be needed anymore. That’s
about it,” (Reed Steele, 2022).