The aim of this activity is to help you understand:

• What sort of organisation do we need to do our project?
• How do we need to organise ourselves as our group grows?
• Who else can help us? and how can we work together?
• How can we make good decisions together?

Developing your governance and partnerships requires establishing structures, processes, and practices that enable effective decision-making, accountability, and transparency.

There are defined stages of the development process for community energy initiatives, these include: organisational structure (of the energy project), legal and regulatory compliance, community engagement and communication, technical structures and finance and fundraising. Please considered the following steps:

• Assess the current capacities: identify strengths and weaknesses of your group, and determine to what extent do specific skills and experience already exist in the group;
• Identify specific areas of interest of individual group members;
• Allocate roles to develop the selected task areas;
• Determine if and what kind of external expertise and skills are required and check if these people might exist within your wider network.
• Consider that there are already a number of well-established community energy organisations that can provide information, standardised documents and templates that can be of interest and use. For example, Community Power Agency or the Coalition for Community Energy have a number of resources that can be of value.
• Reach out and establish contact to potential collaborators by emphasising the mutual benefits and value that the partnership can provide to both parties.
• Determine partnership parameters and conditions: scope, duration and expected outcomes and develop a Memorandum of Understanding. Remember, building a strong partnership with experts requires open communication, mutual respect, and shared goals. Maintain a collaborative and supportive approach throughout the process to maximize the benefits and achieve meaningful outcomes.