Building Strong Partnerships for Makerspaces

This article explores how makerspaces can build sustainable partnerships by identifying the resources they need, drawing on existing networks, and starting with small collaborations. It highlights how trust, complementary resources, and shared interests can provide a stronger foundation for cooperation than funding opportunities alone.

▼This page is part of the Tolocar project by GIZ.This content is open edit, which means we encourage you to edit and reuse all materials while respecting its license.

This article is part of the “Tolocar: Impulse” initiative, empowering makerspaces in Ukraine to develop their organizations and operations to become more efficient in creating value for their communities. As part of this program workshops on varying organizational topics were conducted for a group of participating makers, implemented by Tolocar’s partners metalab and POLE. One of the topics was how to build sustainable partnerships – in the following, the key learnings are summarized. The workshop was hosted by Serhii Bezborodko, founder of the NGO Eco Misto Chernihiv, Kseniia Semenova, operations director at METALAB, and Roman Sakh, Co-founder of Ostriv platform.

One workshop speaker noted: “Every project is like a puzzle... every project requires a number of essential resources... and these are almost never just money.”

Makerspaces rarely have everything they need in-house. One organization may have machines but no space; a university may have unused infrastructure; a local business may have materials; a community organization may already have access to the people you want to reach. A useful partnership starts by asking what is missing and who already has it, rather than immediately looking for a grant.

For a new project, make a simple resource map. Write down what you need under these headings:

• people and time
• technical expertise
• machines and tools
• workspace
• materials
• access to communities or users
• communications and visibility
• organisational or administrative capacity
• money

Then mark what your makerspace already has. The gaps are potential starting points for partnerships. For example, if you want to run a woodworking programme but already have trainers and tools, your biggest need may simply be a room and access to participants. Instead of writing a funding proposal to rent a room and recruit participants, you could approach a school, youth center or community organization that already has both.

This is also why a partner does not necessarily have to contribute money. The workshop examples included organizations contributing infrastructure, expertise, human resources and access to audiences.

Before searching for new organisations, map your existing network: Who have you already worked with successfully? This could include a university that hosted an event, a company that donated material, another makerspace that shared equipment, an NGO that brought participants to a workshop or a designer who helped with a prototype. Then ask whether one of these relationships could become deeper.

“The best place to start is with organizations you already interact with... think about whether there could be a next level of partnership with someone you have already worked with and had a positive experience.”

This reduces one of the biggest risks in collaboration: you already know something about how the other organisation communicates, makes decisions and fulfils commitments.

Do not make your first collaboration a €50,000 joint project. A useful progression can look like this:

Step 1: Host one event together.

Step 2: Run a small workshop together.

Step 3: Develop a small joint project.

Step 4: Apply for funding or make a longer-term commitment together.

The cooperation between Ostriv Platform and ArchiLife followed roughly this path: it began with providing space for lectures, developed into workshops and eventually grew into larger jointly organized activities. Small collaborations reveal things that a partnership meeting cannot: Does the other organization answer messages? Do they deliver what they promised? How do they deal with problems? Who actually makes decisions?

Or, in one participant's much shorter formulation: “Trust is built through fulfilled promises.”

Do not build a partnership around a grant: A funding opportunity can make two organisations look compatible when they are not. One workshop participant described doing exactly this:

“At first I wanted to find shared funding and only afterwards build meaningful cooperation and trust around it. I won't do that again.”

A better order is: shared interest → small collaboration → trust → larger project → funding

A partner may have exactly the machine, workshop or funding you need and still be a poor match. For example, if your makerspace is built around open knowledge, a partner unwilling to share documentation may create problems later.

Potential partners are not limited to other makerspaces and grant-making organizations. The workshop highlighted businesses, private foundations, universities and public programmes as possible sources of resources and cooperation. A useful exercise is therefore to make a list of 20 organizations around your makerspace that possess something you do not.

If you want to dive deeper into this topic and explore the approaches and examples discussed during the workshop, you can find the full presentation here (Ukrainian language).

File:Building Sustainable Partnerships for Makerspaces.pdf