A Note From:
IOA Director Victor Marshall

The Importance of Partnerships

My belief in the importance of partnerships has only increased with the current fiscal downturn and the prospect that the Institute on Aging and many of its partners will have fewer resources in the next few years, until the country recovers from the current depression. It has long been my belief that if two or three organizations with few resources work together in a common cause, somehow, magically, the resources seem to expand and good things happen. Fortunately for the Institute, we have over the years worked to develop and sustain a great many partnerships. In the nature of the beast, the work of partnership development is also a partnership. Some of the notable partnerships that we have initiated or helped to build and sustain are the North Carolina Gerontology Consortium (11 state universities), the North Carolina College Aging Network (14 independent colleges and universities), the North Carolina Healthy Aging Coalition (25 organizations), and the North Carolina Falls Prevention Coalition (over 30 organizations).

The North Carolina Division of Aging and Adult Services partners with us a great deal, as does AARP at the state and national levels. The nature of much of our research efforts, which often use community-based participatory research and translational research strategies, has led us to partner with numerous community organizations, health care facilities, libraries, and corporations in North Carolina and nationally. In fact we also partner with researchers internationally—in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Germany. On our home campus, we partner actively with a number of schools and departments, in research projects and in the organization of events such as The Aging Exchange.

You may get a greater sense of the scope of our partnerships from this more detailed document on our web site. Beyond the formal partnerships mentioned there, I hope that all you individuals who read our newsletters, attend our seminars, interest group meetings and other events, mentor our students, or work with us in research and service activities view yourselves as in partnership with us at the IOA. It is going to be difficult for all of us to come through the current period of financial stress, particularly when the lives of so many older adults, who are a major concern for us all, are at risk in terms of economic security and possibly cuts to the institutional supports of our health and social service systems. I am however confident that the current adversity is not going to continue forever, and I am equally confident that we will more successfully navigate these troubled times if we do so together.

On behalf of the crowd at the Institute on Aging, may I extend our best wishes to you all for the holiday season and a bright new year to come.