Collaboration Without Competition
Rethinking partnerships and ethical collaboration in social impact and creative spaces.
About This Session
In the social impact and community development space, collaboration is frequently promoted but rarely practiced well. While partnerships are often framed as collective efforts, many are shaped by competition for funding, visibility or control.
This dynamic can lead to duplication of work, unequal power relations, mistrust, and in some cases, extractive or performative collaborations that prioritize organizational interests over community outcomes.
This session creates space for honest reflection on how organizations and individuals can collaborate differently—centering trust, shared values and community impact as the foundations for healthier partnership models.
Session Objectives
Develop shared understanding of how competition, duplication and power dynamics surface in collaborative work.
Highlight practical principles and approaches for more transparent and value-aligned collaborations.
Create space for collective reflection, experience-sharing and strategies for navigating partnerships more thoughtfully.
What You'll Gain
Insight into how competition, power dynamics, trust gaps and misaligned incentives shape partnerships, grounded in lived experiences.
Cross-sector perspectives from practitioners across law, policy, creative practice and community development.
A structured conversation that models thoughtful, values-driven dialogue without performance, rivalry or noise.
Connection to AFỌ̀ as a space that prioritizes care, shared learning and depth.
Featured Speakers
Seun Alli
Founder JCAA, Art Curator & Cultural Strategist
Seun Alli is a Lagos-based lawyer, art broker, curator and cultural strategist. Her decade long career in the arts has positioned her as a leading creative professional who has worked with individuals, brands, and institutions to develop exhibitions, art collections, interactive installations, and community-driven projects.
Leonell Echa
Development Advisor, Published Author & Doctoral Fellow
Leonell Elijah Echa is a development advisor and published author with sector-wide experience in safeguards, governance, and peacebuilding across donor-assisted programmes and public service delivery contexts. He is currently a doctoral fellow researching leadership, institutions, and public sector reform.
Moderator
Danielle Shitta-Bey
Moderator
Key Discussion Areas
Collaboration beyond competition
Examining how collaboration is commonly framed and practiced, and how competition for funding, visibility or influence can distort partnership efforts.
Power, trust and accountability in partnerships
Reflecting on how power dynamics shape collaborative relationships, whose voices are centered or sidelined, and what accountability looks like.
Cross-sector collaboration and lived experience
Exploring how actors from different sectors approach collaboration differently, and the tensions and possibilities when diverse ways of working come into contact.
Sustaining collaboration without extraction or duplication
How partnerships can be designed to avoid extractive practices, duplication of effort and short-term alignment driven by funding cycles.
Who Should Attend
Expected Outcomes
Clearer understanding of how competition and power dynamics affect collaboration in creative and social impact spaces.
Exposure to cross-sector perspectives on partnership through insights from law, policy, creative practice and community work.
Experience of a structured virtual conversation and moderated Q&A that models reflective, focused dialogue.
A sense of connection to AFỌ̀ as a space that values thoughtful reflection, shared learning and care.
Watch the Full Session
Missed the live session? Watch the full recording and join the ongoing conversation.