Museums you work with may already have a long history of successful community partnerships from which to build. In these museums the challenges of influencing may not be as significant as for those looking to start community partnership for the first time.
Regardless of which it is you are likely to have to influence others within your museum, the sector or the community as a whole.
The Mutual Benefits exercise at the start of this section should have helped you identify the benefits of community partnership and how community partnerships support your museum’s mission.
In addition to knowing the benefits being able to point to examples of the effective cross-sector partnership work and so being able to signpost to other organisations nationally or locally can also support your influence within.
The following exercises get you to think about how to influence effectively. These approaches can be applied outside your museum and so keep this in mind for the Community Partners section.