What is Hub-in-a-Box?
Welcome to Hub-In-A-Box, an interactive knowledge sharing platform where we share how to harness the power of collaboration and build an innovative multi-sector partnering department, alliance, network or ‘hub’.
When Asia P3 Hub was getting started – building our multi-sector partnership platform to tackle poverty issues – we looked for examples of a similar ‘partnering hub’ in Asia. But we failed to find an innovative, collaboration-focused initiative that we could learn from, benchmark, or replicate their model.
So, we took the idea of a hub - a central ‘safe’ space for connection - focused on incubating collaborative ideas and new partnerships tackling complex social challenges, and we built it from scratch, sailing the ship while we built it.
We believe in the power of sharing our experience, in the hopes that many more will take up the challenge and joy of a collaborative approach, harnessing collective action to find and co-create new solutions.
We’re open-sourcing our approach, condensing our experience and lessons learned since becoming operational in 2016 into the Hub-in-a-Box microsite that houses our interactive, multimedia guide, and the downloadable Hub-in-a-Box Toolkit.
Explore the interactive modules and our downloadable toolkit for best practices, tools, resources and frameworks, our lessons learned and critical success factors. It’s all in one place - and so we’ve coined it the ‘Hub-in-a-Box’.
Open the box and take what you need!
What is a Multi-Sector Partnering hub?
A multi-sector partnering hub is a platform or network that builds collaborative communities that connect across the growing ecosystem of champions, advocates and practitioners of collective action for shared value impact.
It’s important to have safe spaces where collaborators from different sectors can come together, explore the potential for partnership, share ideas, passion and diverse resources, and co-create solutions to the world’s toughest challenges.
We use the term ‘hub’ throughout, but your context might differ from ours. Whether you’re:
- looking to set up a partnering unit or partnership department,
- establishing a network, a consortium or alliance for cross-sector collaboration for social good,
- an intrapreneur or entrepreneur working with multiple stakeholders,
- building an innovative new department or organisation from scratch, with limited resources,
This Hub-in-a-Box site and downloadable toolkit will show you how you can get started and set up your ‘hub’ for multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Why a P3 Approach?
Given the complexity of the challenges facing the world today, there is a need more than ever for collective action, systemic and transformational change, leveraging diverse and innovative resources.
Think of global challenges like climate change, providing water and sanitation to everyone on the planet, providing healthcare, ensuring every child has access to education. How do we address the complexities of these issues? In our inter-connected world, no one sector can address these challenges alone. New cross-sector models for collaboration are necessary to address the challenges of our increasingly complex world and to innovate and co-create solutions that transform lives.
Players from each sector can contribute complementary and diverse skills and resources. When pooled and combined in new and creative ways, something we call combinatorial innovation, these resources can have a multiplier effect to achieve greater impact.
Partnerships have been recognised as crucial to the realisation of the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “The importance of partnership has been recognised fully by the UN, by business and by all leading institutions in international development. The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the blueprint for global development – represent a fundamental shift in thinking, explicitly acknowledging the interconnectedness of prosperous business, a thriving society and a healthy environment.”
Collective action through multi-sector approaches, and hand-in-hand with the problem-owners themselves, holds promising potential for meaningful, sustainable change at scale.
The Hub-in-a-Box Guide takes a modular approach, so you can learn from our journey to build a safe space for collaboration for social good. Take what you like and need from the contents of the ‘box’. Experiment, deploy and scale!
Explore the modules of our Hub-in-a-Box Guide, and download the PDF Hub-in-a-Box Toolkit. The downloadable toolkit is a handbook that covers all of the necessary pieces to get set up. The interactive online modules offer more of a deep dive into certain areas- with practical ‘how-to’ content for different stages of building and operating a platform for cross-sector collaboration, including webinars, videos, and tools and resources.
Depending on which stage you’re at, and the context of your organisation, you may find different modules more relevant – perhaps you’re getting started, developing your strategy, looking to structure partnerships, or trying to navigate being an intrapreneur in a large organisation. Wherever you are on your journey, we hope you find these modules valuable, and that you’ll share these resources and keep coming back.
The power of pooling our resources and our social capital – moving beyond a zero-sum mentality to one where generosity of spirit produces a multiplier effect for all – is the essence behind the Hub-in-a-Box.
Resources like data, networks and relationships are “generative” rather than scarce. The more they are used, the more of each resource we have; the better it becomes…data begets more data, knowledge catalyses new knowledge, and the strong social capital underpinning relationships benefits from being carefully tended…- Aaron Maniam, Singapore civil servant and an award-winning poet
Download our Hub-in-a-Box Toolkit: a starter kit on how to build and operate a multi-sector partnering unit or department. The downloadable toolkit contains slightly different content from the interactive content on this site - the toolkit covers all of the necessary pieces to get set up, while the interactive online modules offer more of a deep dive into certain areas - and it’s a handy reference tool you can keep going back to.
About Our Hub
Asia P3 Hub (People — Public — Private), is an open space for multi-sector collaboration. We tackle effects of poverty through partnerships across government, business and civil society to create solutions that multiply resources, break poverty cycles and benefit families and communities. We were founded in Singapore in 2016 and incubated by World Vision International’s Asia Pacific regional office, and as of July 2019 we function as a separate not-for-profit organisation.
We’ve brokered partnerships, nurtured the partnership ecosystem and impacted many lives for the better. We’re continuing to demonstrate that the people, public and private sectors can come together, find a shared passion and common ground, and collaborate and co-create solutions for the world’s most complex problems.
We’ve learned so much along the way that we knew we had to share it all here. You can read more about our work or reach out to us here.
