Cross Sector Collaborations – Insights from The Outdoor Connection 2024
It seems like everyone is talking about working ‘cross sector’ these days, but what does that really mean? At our event - The Outdoor Connection - we hosted a community panel discussion to delve into what cross sector collaboration is, the benefits you can get from it and the pitfalls to avoid.
This article is written by Hannah Frost who is part of the team behind @eds.climbers on Instagram. Hannah was in the audience for this panel, and she has highlighted some of the key points of the discussion.
Through a series of articles, we’re sharing key takeaways from some of the sessions at The Outdoor Connection 2024. You can find the full list of articles here.
The Outdoor Connection 2024 was an All The Elements x YHA Outdoor Citizens partnership event, supported by YHA England and Wales, Natural England and Sport England. brings together community groups, organisations, system partners and brands, working to support access to nature and the outdoors to share experiences, learn from each other and develop new skills. Find put more about The Outdoor Connection 2025 here.
Meet The Experts:
Aneela McKenna (she/her) is an award-winning Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) change-maker. With a lifetime career in this field, she is Founder of the Mòr Diversity Consultancy. She also works closely with outdoor brands and provides educational training and workshops on EDI. Aneela is a Mountain Bike coach, guide, tutor and mentor working specifically at a grassroots level to widen participation and increase diversity in leadership.
Anna Jones (she/her) is the Inclusion, Diversity and Governance Excellence Strategic Lead for Tirweddau Cymru Landscapes Wales. She supports, joins up, and drives forward inclusion for TCLW across all eight ‘Designated Landscapes in Wales’.
Steph Wetherell (she/her) is the co-founder of Every Body Outdoors, an organisation working for plus size inclusivity in the outdoors. The group works with brands to increase sizing of clothing and kit (and ensure it fits well), get better representation of plus size bodies, and create online and physical spaces for plus size people to gain confidence and skills in the outdoors.
Sabrina Pace-Humphreys (she/her) is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Black Trail Runners, a community and campaigning charity working to increase the inclusion, participation and representation of people of Black ethnicity in trail running. She’s worked in marketing and PR for twenty-five years, and ran her own award-winning PR agency for sixteen years.
Cath Luke (she/her) has worked in outdoor education since her early twenties and gained the Mountain Leader outdoor qualification in 1984. She has worked for Mountain Training for twenty-seven years, first in customer service, then in managing the customer services and now as Governance & Equity Officer.
Debbie North (she/her) is appointed by the cabinet office as the Disability and Access Ambassador for the countryside. A regular contributor to BBC Countryfile Magazine, Trail magazine, and Sustainable Travel, Debbie shares her insights on accessible outdoor experiences. She is the founder of Access the Dales, a charity dedicated to providing all-terrain wheelchairs in the Yorkshire Dales and Forest of Bowland regions.
Cross Sector Synergies Panel - From left to right, Aneela McKenna (host) with Anna Jones, Steph Wetherell, Sabrina Pace-Humphreys, Cath Luke, Debbie North
The Final Session of The Outdoor Connection 2024
After a busy day of separate sessions, we all gathered together for the final panel discussion. Aneela was leading the panel discussion on the topic of Cross Sector Collaboration, and started off with asking the speakers to introduce themselves based off of their last Instagram post – a lighthearted approach that made for some fun and interesting introductions.
The session then moved on to a show of hands from the audience, asking who has previously collaborated with others, in which we found out pretty much everyone attending had engaged in some form of cross sector collaboration. With a follow-on question, many said they had positive experiences of collaboration, but a few had some negative experiences. This was a good starting point for discussion with the panel.
What is Cross Sector Collaboration?
Cross sector collaboration is about working with others outside of your organisation and, often, with individuals or organisations who have the same end goal for the project but are not necessarily bringing the same skills or experience. A strong cross sector collaboration is one where the parties involved bring their own strengths to build a more powerful project overall. It can involve co-creation, which is getting others involved with developing projects, empowering them to engage with the outdoors. For this you need to develop a trusted partnership.
Sabrina used the example of Black Trail Runners’ partnership with Strava in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and describes a trusted partnership as one where each organisation in the partnership understands exactly what the other organisation stands for and what their goals are. Each member of the partnership should also be able to offer something to help the other organisation to reach these goals.
Because of this, it is important to be proactive to learn more about who you will be collaborating with, before you meet to discuss working together. Steph highlighted that with her group, Every Body Outdoors, it isn’t necessary for a potential partner to come with full understanding to a meeting about a potential partnership, but some awareness is good. “I appreciate when people have done a bit of background reading or research. ‘I listened to a podcast you're on or an article that you wrote and I've looked at your website and I've got some understanding of what you're doing’". She also likes it when the organisation is willing to introduce Every Body Outdoors to other departments, such as social media and store staff, which can open up other different opportunities.
Benefits of Cross Sector Collaboration
Cross sector collaboration has many benefits.
Access to funding. Due to various cuts in both the public and private sectors, it is becoming harder to secure funding because there are less pots of money to go round. Forming partnerships can help you access different pots of funding to reach your goals. For example, some grants are only open to charities or non-profit organisations, so if you don’t fit the criteria you could work with another organisation that does to put in a collaborative bid.
Resources can be shared. Being able to split the cost and admin of resources can again help each organisation to access the things it needs to carry out its work and reach its goals. This can also have the added benefit of providing more stable work for a team member, if they are able to work more hours across a couple of organisations.
Introducing your work to a new audience. Cross sector collaboration may be helpful in improving the visibility of your community. For example by collaborating on an event with other community groups, you are potentially opening up your own group to a wider range of people who may not have otherwise known about or thought they could join your group.
What Are the Pitfalls?
Whilst cross sector collaboration has many benefits it is important to be aware of the pitfalls. The panel discussion highlighted three potential pitfalls.
Tokenism. If they are not genuine about inclusion, there is a risk of being tokenised by the other organisation. This is when an organisation hires, works with or uses someone as a symbol of inclusion to avoid appearing discriminatory or prejudiced. Aneela mentioned that she has experienced this lots of times and learned to be resilient to it. “I've been a token many times,” she said, “and I've come to learn through my own resilience that, actually, I need to embrace my identity and use it as almost a superpower to make change”. However she recognised not everyone will feel this way or have the same level of resilience.
Lack of budget. Brands that want to partner with you may not have a budget for the work you do. There is the danger you find you are doing work for free, whilst the people working for the brand are being paid for the same project. The advice given to help combat this was to be confident to ask about a budget when first meeting about potential collaborations, and to know your worth and value when asking to be compensated for your work.
Burnout. You could potentially reach burnout as a result of the collaboration. This could be the case if the previous two pitfalls exist, but it could also come about if you are trying to drive change within an organisation or sector where there is resistance to that change. Working for change is tiring, especially if it seems like no one is listening or taking action on what you are saying. Burnout can also occur if you struggle to say ‘no’ and find yourself taking on more work than you have capacity for. You can learn more in the ATE article, Managing Wellbeing and Burnout.
Tips for successful cross-sector collaboration
Remember that building relationships can take time.
Find out who you want to speak to and what role they are in. Sabrina gave a great example of her experience at the start of Black Trail Runners - “At that time we knew no one at Strava. Over the course of a year I took it upon myself not only to find out who the people that I needed to speak to at Strava was – the Head of Social Impact – but to use my communications experience in order to put us in front of the right people digitally.”
If you don’t know where to start, reach out to other community groups to ask about how they built partnerships and how they got where they are. Debbie pointed out the importance of speaking to people at events like The Outdoor Connection, but also online. “You go away with new friends… it's the connections, not just today, but LinkedIn's brilliant for keeping on top of what's going on. And don't be afraid to admit that you don't know”.
Don’t underestimate the benefits of having an external cheerleader to help boost your confidence and motivation. All The Elements offers 1:1 calls for community members for precisely this reason, to provide support to grassroots changemakers.
If you have something specific you want to work on then a fully-costed, written proposal gives a positive impression to potential partners. Cath suggested that this helps organisations like hers as it shows “you've understood exactly what's involved in achieving that project and that they [the organisation] can contribute in some way”.
Don’t feel afraid to say ‘no’ to an opportunity if, after finding out the details, it is not right for you or your organisation, or if you don’t have the capacity to take on the extra work. On the flipside, if you work in an organisation wanting to engage with communities, it’s important to make sure your organisation is ready to do it authentically. Anna said that in her role she sometimes has to safeguard potential collaborators. “I have to draw a line and say [to the groups] ‘actually I don't feel confident that you're going to have the most positive experience yet’”.
This article was written as part of our content series from The Outdoor Connection 2024. You can read more content from the event here.
