Through interviews and subsequent meetings with partnership leaders and staff members to review initial findings of this report, the Working for America Institute identified a number of organizational challenges and needs facing high road partnerships—as well as the assistance partnerships need to be most effective.

In the broadest terms, partnerships and potential partnerships face challenges from successfully convening partnerships and building leadership to identifying problems and strategies to address them and finally implementing programs and building effective high road organizations.

The high road partnerships studied identified the need for technical assistance and other action that would draw on their own evolving expertise as well as that of the Working for America Institute. The Institute was seen as able to play the role of a catalyst, with expertise to encourage and aid new partnerships, as well as an organizational resource for information and the linchpin of a partnerships learning network. Types of technical assistance called for include cross-region coordination and shared learning opportunities, workforce development with a focus on community linkages, strategic planning for consortium development, research for business and sector development and institution-building such as staff and leadership development.

The following list provides a more detailed look at the partnerships' challenges and technical assistance needs, identifying steps the Working for America Institute will take.

Strategic Planning and Strategic Research

To develop and grow, organizations should be built on sound strategic planning and research. All 14 partnerships studied have used these important tools to make decisions, build alliances, raise public awareness and build their organizations.

Strategic planning is a group process that requires a range of skills: facilitation, communication, problem solving and more. When partners plan together, as did the E-Team union and community partners, they reach new understandings, overcome barriers, set common goals and create opportunities for future ventures.

Strategic research provides a foundation of facts to assist people engaged in strategic planning with decision making. As demonstrated by Working Partnerships USA's series of reports on the economy of the Silicon Valley, strategic research also can be used very effectively to raise public awareness and credibility. The Worker Center, AFL-CIO, has used strategic planning and research to build a series of labor-community coalitions in the Puget Sound area. The Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership and the Labor-Management Council for Economic Renewal have based their work and outreach efforts on strategic industry and sector research. The Hospital League and the Philadelphia Hospital and Health Care- District 1199C Training and Upgrading Fund use industry trends and job skill research to design effective training.

Unions, employers and academic and government partners should be tapped to help partnerships obtain:

• Strategic planning expertise, with access to outside experts and skill development in planning process and tools.
• Basic demographic and economic information covering a region's industry base, the size of individual firms, current wage levels and labor market make-up, levels of contingent work, local poverty rates, worker skills and assets and information about community organizations.
• Basic information about the structure of economic and regional development and business development programs, including employee ownership and finance, Small Business Administration programs and regional planning bodies.
• Effective linkages and common planning processes with community and business partners and with local think tanks, colleges and universities.
• Help with planning across an entire business sector or geographic area.
• Analyses of how employers compete within industries and geographic areas.
• Industry information that includes company strategies, ownership, production process changes, new technology, skill and job classification changes—and how these factors compare with those in other sectors and geographic areas.
• An understanding of workplace issues, including emerging technologies, skill requirements, changes in production processes and work structure and opportunities for labor participation in defining jobs.

Working for America Action Steps: The Working for America Institute, which has knowledge and experience with strategic planning and research tools and in establishing regional consortia, will provide:

• Direct assistance, where feasible, through its field staff to labor organizations working to establish new partnerships and build existing partnerships.
• Training on strategic planning and research through national and regional conferences.
• Tools such as the Institute's economic development guide and regional economic analysis training material to aid unions and communities in developing high road partnerships.
• Links between existing partnerships and emerging ones in similar sectors.
• Links between international unions and other potential industry and sector resources.
• Models and best practice examples in planning and research.