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Challenges and Barriers
Public private partnerships have seen a large increase over the years in part because local and state governments rely heavily on the growing number of non-profits to provide many public services that they cannot. Entering into a public private partnership can be rewarding as well as destructive if not done with caution and education. Partnerships need balance from both parties as well as continuous maintenance. If not entered into lightly one can find their organization falling in various areas proving to be one of many partnership failures.


 * 1) Flexibility between the two partners as well as the contract and staff involved throughout the process. If one party feels they are losing some of the control they may work on adopting more rules and regulations throughout the process instead of working together to be flexible and mediate an issue.
 * 2) Timeline Non-profits are working on a long term timeline. Many of their goals can only be achieved with long term commitment, this is where their focus will lie. For-profit organizations are more short term oriented due to short term goals focusing primarily on profitability. Finally, government agencies timeline depends a lot on election timelines and therefor can change regularly.
 * 3) Focus of the project Partners may not have the same focus when entering into a partnership even though they think they might.
 * 4) Funding priorities When parties can’t agree on where funding should go this can sometimes lead to losses in time, resources, and the overall funding for the project. Funding priorities for government bodies looks typically at where the public’s funds were spent in relation to the contract made. This then typically is looked at as in how many hours of participations, forms filled out, meals served. Etc. Neighborhood organizations or small and local non-profits saw a broad source of funding during the early years but there has been a shift in funding more recently reducing the overall funding and seeing more of it go to larger agencies focusing on large grants.
 * 5) Accountability With the rise in public private partnerships there is also a rise in the responsibility that the non-profits tend to hold. With the government relying on many more of these organizations to provide the public services they cannot it is also proving difficult for the government to hold these non-profits responsible. When responsibilities are not set to the letter this can cause some in managerial positions to take the back seat, seeing their counterparts taking the initiative to get tasks done. This leaves an unbalance of work and sometimes those with the most stills are not doing the job. This can also be brought on by undermanagement causing more problems such as a lack of focus for the projects, mismanaged funding, and miscommunication. Too many projects and partnerships can also lead to a lack of accountability. When there are too many tasks they seem to all fall short of the hoped perfection. Some partners may be taking over roles of others because accountability has not been well defined. This can also lead to some taking advantage of others when they note the any weakness. This can cause a distrustful partnership.
 * 6) Communication or understanding One of the largest issues that can be discussed, communication can be a huge downfall and can contribute to many of the other risks within partnerships. It can be said that when entering into a cross-sector partnership it is difficult to understand and collaborate due to the diversity and differing languages spoken amongst the sectors. Items like performance measures, goal measurements, government regulations, and the nature of funding can all be interpreted differently thus causing blurred lines of communication.
 * 7) Autonomy within the partnership. While working together is important it is still a strength to be able to work on parts of the project alone, take initiative when needed, and keep some individualism throughout the process. This is beginning to happen more with the privatization of public private partnerships where the private organization may own the partnership itself and the government then keeps full responsibility for it. This keeps parts of the partnership separate for focus.
 * 8) Conflicts can arise from any of the above topics but even outside issues or forces may bring a partnership to a halt. Even though these partnerships are entered into with the best of intentions even the most trivial issues can snowball into greater conflict halting a partnership dead in its tracks. Having no understanding and communication between parties can cause conflicts with use of language, stereotyping, negative assumptions, and prejudice about the other organization. These conflicts can be related to territorialism or protectionism, and a lack of commitment to working within the partnership.
 * 9) Possible solutions Some research leads us to believe that partnerships are not natural for business and managers do not want to depend on others but it is possible with careful solutions.
 * 10) Creating an ongoing narrative about partnerships and how will these be developed, maintained, terminated. This is especially prevalent to the local and state governments who rely heavily on the non-profits for the public services. A business partnership model would not be accurate or appropriate for a P3. Many partnerships can be terminated early due to issues with trust and cooperation during the contract implementation process. These issues can be avoided when the organization has initial guidelines for dos and don’ts.
 * 11) Creating a formal control mechanism for the partnership.
 * 12) Insure that there is a continuous commitment with negotiations in any time of trouble and even an outline for termination procedures if necessary.
 * 13) In addition items like conflict resolution, outreach and organizational development are items that managers can work on and even assign specialists to each task. Creating a timeline to be followed throughout the partnership assists in mutual understanding and communication as well. Assigning specialists to work with skills in communication, conflict resolution, negotiation and policy analysis cross-sector partnerships have also been able to flourish.