Week 4: Collaboration and sustainability

Archived English Discussions Collaboration
#1

This is our last week together. Let’s take advantage of the fact that we are from all across Africa and have this unique opportunity to share and learn from each other on the important topic of collaboration.

This week we are discussing how to make collaboration last.

Here are some questions to help guide the discussion:

  1. Does all collaboration between radio broadcasters and stakeholders require funding? Why? Or why not?
  2. How can collaboration between radio broadcasters and stakeholders be sustainable? Please provide examples of long-lasting collaboration you’ve been involved in related to radio programs.

You can also ask questions on collaboration topics that we have not touched on yet. As always our resource people will contribute ideas and respond to your questions.

Please be reminded that those of you that contribute two to three meaningful posts each week will receive a certificate indicating they were active participants in the e-Discussion. If you have missed out on previous weeks, you can still go back and contribute between now and Friday.

#2
#3

We have discussed collaboration in the previous weeks and noted collaboration comes in various shapes and forms as we endeavor to collaborate with various stakeholders. Some collaborations requires funding whilst other might not as elaborated below.
There are some collaborations initiated and funded by projects in which most often some funding is required.
However, with all developmental projects particularly in Africa, such collaboration tend to fizzle out as the project comes to a close or exits. This happens because the project might have been providing some form of funding and incentives for the stakeholders to be together.
There are other collaborations which might not require funding but the willingness, commitment and passion of the the parties to collaborate to achieve a set goal is all what is needed but not physical money (if funding as used here is money).
For a example a community radio station might collaborate with various organisations and institutions to extend education to community members as part of its core mandate. We all know and understand the financial standings of most community radios ( not financial strong to support payment of allowances and other incentives to resource persons).
Knowing the situation of the radio station as not for profit radio station some institutions might collaborate with them to get the public informed and educated on important matters and national issues in which monies and payment would not required from either party.
Therefore some collaborations require funding whist others do not but requires commitment, dedication, passion and the willingness to serve humanity.

2 Likes
#4

Good day, Olusina Motiasan from Ejulenen93.7fm igbodigo,okitipupa,ondo state, Nigeria. Am a programmer,producer,presenter reporter and a newscaster.Firstly let me acknowledge the presence of notable people I really my interaction with you and opportunity giving to me to be part of this discussion am very grateful thank you all I will miss you all but I wish we have another discussion soon

2 Likes
#5

Olusina Motiasan from Ejulene93.7fm igbodigo,okitipupa,ondo state, Nigeria. One of the main thing that can make collaboration strong and be sustained is fund because it serve as motivating and encouraging factor.Because most of us in our locality are not financial buoyant and most of has both the skills and zeal but to prove this will be abortive when it comes to funding

2 Likes
#6

Collaboration between broadcaster and stakeholders can be sustained by regular fundings like sponsorship and motivation also good interaction between parties involved though all what I have been saying in some part of Africa is very easy while a bit serious in other part for instance people like me I will be going for my morning duty with a token or little amount of cash and I come across fine and reliable news and information if should stop to pick the news or information that means there will be no transport fear for me again because no where to get money just because I serve voluntarily.so funding is very necessary

2 Likes
#7

Thank you Olusina, l agree with you when you say that collaborations can be sustained by regular funding though l wonder how you can keep the collaboration when you have to be dependant of your stakeholders. In cases where you do not have a salary/allowance from your station and you rely on the stakeholders to give you transport or facilitation then you are doomed! You will be obliged to be biased in your dissemination of information or news in favour of your funders because you will be just a messenger who delivers news/information of those who part with their money and the useful information you can ignore because it is not accompanied with any money and in this way you will be doing a deservice to your audience in this case the farmers! For, remember, “he who pays the Piper, calls for the tune!”; yours will be praising fake stuff for companies such as useless equipment and other agricultural appliances. Think about it before the stakeholders use you to fulfill their mean projects. God Bless you.

1 Like
#8

Yakub, you have said it right, though l have noted where you insist on those collaborations which require funding and you noted very well that such collaborations tend to fizzle out as projects come to a close or exits; now, this is where in our case as broadcasters have to have visions when we enter into such processes as we work with our partners we should have strategies in place on how to sustain the projects when the contacts finally come to an end. As you pointed out we need to collaborate or enter into partnership with organizations or individuals who are there for farmers’ well being otherwise!

2 Likes
#9

Does all collaboration between Radio broadcasters and stakeholders require funding? Why or why not?

Collaboration on one hand, as seen in our understandings and as defined at the beginning of the discussion is partnerships - action of working with someone to produce or create something while on the other hand we saw it as a process of two or more people/organizations working together to achieve/complete a task/goal which in our case means giving our audience/the farmers information and news as well as a platform on which they can express vtheir views and grievences.
It is also quite clear that collaborations are working practices whereby individuals/organizations work towards a common purpose to achieve a business benefit. It enables the two to work together to achieve the defined or common business purpose. It includes cooperative arrangement between two or more parties.
Now, does all collaborations between radio broadcasters and stakeholders require funding?
I would say "yes and no!
There are collaborations which require funds such as in the case of a sponsored farmers’ program facilitation for the presenter/reporter to go to the field to gather material and also to cater for the airtime, transport, meals, perdiem etc. This is when radio collaborates with an organisation/company/individual. Even when the collaboration is that which is between the radio and farmers still there will be need for funds. The existence of a collaboration without any element of funds is almost not there.

  • List item
#10

Thank you for this @Yakubu. It reminds me of when I was still a presenter at a community radio station. An organisation called “English in Action” approached us for collaboration, they gave us Grade 1 recorded English lessons to play on air. Each lesson was maximum 30 mins teaching basic English speaking. The lesson would also come with activity instructions for the teachers. For some reason, that program fell within my time on air and no presenter was interested, they thought it was boring. To make sure we get the intended audience, we approached the department of education to connect us to schools, this was easy because the “English in Action” organisation provided wind-up radios to make it easy for schools to tune in. The radio station was not getting any funds from the organisation and schools or department of education did not have to make any payment towards this.

The project ran for years and each new year we would receive new programs. This did not only benefit schools but the women at home who never had a chance to go to school. They would call in appreciating the program everyone else though was boring.

#11

@Olusina @rehema

Yes funding is important but it is not all that can sustain collaboration. @MartinMwape last week spoke about collaboration with those who have a goal to reach. I think that should be the main driver. Imagine a farmer program where you collaborate with relevant stakeholders that will make it easy for you to produce programs that address issues farmers face. Your program will surely have more value than when you are just on your own and depending on whoever you ask with no formal continuous arrangement. If parties agree on collaboration, they keep their side of commitment, things go well. Your programs will be informative and will gain more listeners. When you produce programs that good, you will be in a better position to look for sponsorship. The marketing team will find it easy to get people to advertise during your program.

This is absolutely true @rehema Some people might dictate on how you should go about doing your business just because they pay you. If you work with people who want to achieve a goal, then you are on the right track.

1 Like
#12

Busi and Yakubu I feel you people you are great,thank you for your wonderful contribution and warm accommodating

1 Like
#13

  1. Does all collaboration between radio broadcasters and stakeholders require funding? Why? Or why not?
    Not all collaborations should come with money but should not be free for ever.
    Partners should be open and clean to each other. Let each other know when there’s money and when there no money and it’s should be transparent as possible.
    You don’t engage a media house for free when you don’t have money but when you have money, you them come with excuses and take the money to another media house indicating they are more qualified.
    Even if it is a donor funded, you should be able to explain to the donors why you will have to work with your collaborators.
    I give free airtime and ads to collaborators when they indicate they don’t have money for a specific project or program but it is mostly a one sided. Media have to give but the others won’t or don’t normally do.
    There are even resource guests who will like to take money from media houses when they have to come for media shows but why should this happen? You want money as a guest but when you also want an air time to engage your people, you want it for free.
    As we talk about collaboration, let look at all that.

  2. How can collaboration between radio broadcasters and stakeholders be sustainable? Please provide examples of long-lasting collaboration you’ve been involved in related to radio programs.

For sustainable collaboration with media houses:

  • Donor partners or development partners should engage media house on an existing platform not to ask them to create a platform for them during their funding space. If you do that and the support is no more, that will be the end of the show. (I have an Agric program running on Monday evenings, if you have funds for an Agric project, don’t ask me to create a new platform for your project, let me use mine existing Agric platform)
  • Collaborators will have to be made to own donor project from day one to sustain it after the exist of the donors.
  • Ownership of Agric shows should be done in a way that the stakeholders feel the ownership from day one so that they don’t allow it to go down at any point.
  • Inputs by stake holders should be considered for ownership to happen for overall goal of sustainability.
    You can also ask questions on collaboration topics that we have not touched on yet. As always our resource people will contribute ideas and respond to your questions.
    You can also give me feedback on some of the issues I have raised if you think otherwise.
    Thank you
2 Likes
#14

Not all collaborations require funding. For example, collaboration between a community radio station and a local farmers union or organisation might not require funding because the resource people who are required for interviews may not have any costs related to the program like transport etc.

However some collaborations require funding. There are times when broadcasters may need to send their personnel to interview some people who are either in remote areas or in areas that are far and need someone to travel there. Such interviews may not be done over a telephone because of different reasons. One of those reasons being the lack of network coverage. The costs for maintaining collaborations are not high in most cases because they are mainly for transport. It is therefore necessary for broadcasters to maintain those collaborations.

#15

There are ways to sustain collaboration between stakeholders and broadcasters. The easiest one could be building mutual understanding between two parties and also going further to signing MoUs. From time to time the two parties should be able to continously share information that will help to keep the relationship between the two parties alive.

#16

Deal all,

Here is my contribution to the questions in week 4

  1. Does all collaboration between radio broadcasters and stakeholders require funding? Why? Or why not?

I will begin by saying no, not all collaboration require funding though to some extent collaboration require funding as per my explanation below.

Why all collaboration does not require funding;

a) We need each other or one another in collaboration where we each benefit from it as per the agreement. This may not necessarily require money between us in order to benefit from each other or render a service to each other. Take an example; in a swap deal of Pepsi company that makes for us free T-shirts for our radio staff in return for a promotion of the Pepsi company without monies exchanging hands, this kind of collaboration does not have actual money given to our radio or the broadcasters that promote the Pepsi company.

b) A number of times broadcasters may lack some facilities say cellphones with advanced features to broadcast some agriculture information to the rural farmer group/s that would listen in to the information in a group. When a cellphone company collaborates with a radio station and gives the handsets to a number of broadcasters who do the farming programs to communicate with the rural group at the same time when the cellphone/s are given to the group/s to listen to the programs, when on the other hand the broadcasters promote a product from the telecom company, that is collaboration that does not necessarily require money.

Then, why to some extent, collaboration require funding;

a) At times, though you started as collaborators without funding, as time goes by, you will find yourselves stretching beyond what you can not provide for a collaborator. It may be a service of non-funding material giving, but at some stage this requires some financial facilitation that you can not have for a service, then this requires request for funding with such explanations. So you may discuss with the collaborator.

b) At times it also happens that in that collaboration you may not involve funding for the broadcasters, and the partners may involve some commercial adverts where they may earn much to the expense of the broadcasters, then funding element may come in. Also when there is breach of contract and one party benefits more at the expense of other when the other incurs a lot of costs.

In summary therefore, in order to benefit from our collaborations, we need not to look at money or funding in order to collaborate and benefit from each other’s service. However, collaborations may require funding. The underlying issues are spelling out terms clearly from the start.

  1. How can collaboration between radio broadcasters and stakeholders be sustainable? Please provide examples of long-lasting collaboration you’ve been involved in related to radio programs.

By sticking to the agreed terms in the collaboration or the arrangement so that one party does not lose out on that collaboration. Here you sustain each other or one another well. The long- lasting example of collaboration is at our station where for a very long time of about ten years, Pepsi cola company gives us Christmas gifts that we even give to some selected ardent listeners every year, and we normally advertise their products for a specific period of time not exceeding about…four months.

b) Also, we maintain relationships by not deviating as agreed. Sorry this one is related to the answer above; that when we advertise Pepsi for that period, we do not again advertise their rival company Coca-cola during that specific time. But if it so happens that coca-cola is like …sponsoring an event say a tournament, then we make them talk to agree how best we can fit in each other.

That is my submission.

All the best.

3 Likes
#17

Not all collaborations between radio broadcasters and stakeholders requires funding because many times especially farming programme you need a resource person on a specific topic that will dig deep on it. Such resource person may not pay for such knowledge they disseminate while some may compensate you for bringing them on radio.

So, I will conclude the first question by saying that some collaborations require funds while some don’t. Those require funding usually be sponsored programmes while those that didn’t are the programmes that needs resource person to dig deep on a particular topic for more understanding.

On the second one, let me note that the attitudes of both broadcasters and stakeholders with financial capability (in case of sponsored programme) and wealth of knowledge of the resource person determined the sustainability of such collaborations.

I may not right but bound to be teach and be corrected as I’m here to learn.

Best regards to all.

2 Likes
#18

Olusina Motiasan is my name from Ejulene93. 7fm igbodigo, okitipupa, ondo state, Nigeria.Most of collaboration between broadcaster and stakeholders requires fund especially in our area because it is the backbone of agreement

#19

Good morning, Olusina Motiasan is my name from Ejulene93. 7fm igbodigo, okitipupa, ondo state, Nigeria. Collaboration between broadcaster and stakeholders requires fund because as at now some don’t even know the importance of listen to radio program and they still need strong sensitization as to win their heart but before any broadcaster can embark on that such broadcaster need funds on like community radio that most of us were their on voluntarism

#20

Olusina Motiasan is my name from Ejulene93. 7fm I want to ask this question from Busi,Yakubu,Bfiafor and others, is there any way you can assist young broadcasters like us that are ready with the zeal to work?