Deciding to explore a public-private partnership or to merge with another organization involves very similar assessments:
1. Do we have similar missions?
2. Do we have similar or compatible cultures?
3. What do each of us bring to the partnership?
4. What might we lose by doing this?
Please investigate a public-private partnership or a merger and write a short paper that references some of the readings in Jossey-Bass(Chapter 15/5/7 or anything you find useful. You can find out more about possible organizations online. Here are a few you might want to look at: Humane Animal Partners (humananimalpartners.org), East Bay Performing Arts (San Francisco), and the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance (Ohio); the High Line (a public-private partnership linear park in NYC). There are articles on line about all of these organizations.
Your 3-4 page paper should focus on answering the above questions, and on the details of how the partnership/merger began, worked through issues, and came to a decision to move ahead. If the partnership/merger is more than a few years old, is it working? You could check the financials; has there been a leadership changeover; are there stories in the papers? If the partnership has just begun, what would you suggest the board and management should consider?