A Boost for Lutsk: How Algorithm of Actions Builds a Partnership Ecosystem to Transform the City

Algorithm of Actions is a platform that brings together the business, technology, and creative communities of Lutsk and implements projects aimed at highlighting the city on the map of Ukraine and the country on the map of the world through community development. The organization’s founders believe that effective change requires unity, and forming partnerships is, therefore, one of the key aspects of their activities.

Thanks to the platform, spaces for cooperation between experts from different industries emerge in Lutsk, public organizations and initiatives grow, and local businesses develop. All of this contributes to the investment attractiveness of the community and helps it gain the reputation of a global creative center.

We spoke with Ella Yatsuta, head of the Algorithm of Action platform, and Tetiana Zubryk, head of the Abo creative hub, about the development of their organization. We also explored the issues of building a partnership ecosystem, the nuances of cooperation, and the factors essential for them to succeed. Read more on this in our conversation below.

Why is Algorithm of Actions a platform? What do you mean by that?

Ella:

When we were thinking about how to position Algorithm of Actions, we moved away from the public use of the legal form “civic society organization.” Instead, we chose “platform,” because we bring representatives from different sectors together. We consider everyone involved in our projects to be part of our community. We also use the term “ecosystem,” which includes partner organizations: When we see a project, investment, or something else that can strengthen them, we always share this information and facilitate interaction.

Our work is based on shared values, love for our city, and desire to have proactive people in it. We want Lutsk to be visible at least on the map of Ukraine and Europe.

What is unique about your organization?

Tetiana:

The main mission of Algorithm of Actions is giving impetus. It can take various forms: consulting, providing premises for events, financing. In other words, we give impetus, and communities develop further on their own. Another feature of our platform is that it was founded on February 23, 2022 by five local businesspeople from different fields dreaming of seeing the city develop. These are self-sufficient entrepreneurs who understood that an efficient and qualitative change requires unity.

Why do you need partnerships and how do you build them?

Ella:

Partnerships are the basis of our work. We even joke that it’s like a religion. It is important for us to build trusting relationships where we all understand that though everyone is great on their own, together we can do something completely different and more efficient than we could do alone. All of our projects involve the interaction of two or more partners. In most cases, we think about who to collaborate with at the idea stage to make the project as effective as possible. We build partnerships at the local, national, and international levels.

Tetiana:

While we have a permanent team where everyone has specific expertise, there are also issues where we need the help of other experts. In that case, we do as follows: We don’t “inflate” our own staff but go to organizations that work in the field we need and create a partnership project with them. We believe that we can thus achieve better results much faster.

Are the projects you implement your own initiatives or are they based on external requests?

Ella:

There are those launched by Algorithm of Actions, when we see a request from the audience, form a concept, and start engaging partners to implement the idea in our or some other city. There are also projects based on external requests, when people sharing our mood, values, effectiveness, and pace reach out to us. The latter is crucial, because not everyone can move so fast.

Sometimes, organizations, communities, or individuals with interesting ideas but without clear vision for their activities come to our attention. If we see their potential, we are likely to help them pave their way.

What do you look for when a new organization approaches you with a proposal to create something together?

Ella:

We don’t have a checklist of criteria but tend to rely on intuitive perception. That is, you can clearly see who you are dealing with and how that person or team thinks.

Once, our co-founders said that when they created this platform, they dreamed of changing the algorithm of actions and decision-making in people’s minds. First, we think about what we want to change, what problem to solve, what challenge to tackle, or what to achieve. Then, we start analyzing, taking into account all the data, audience demand, and context and anticipating risks — and only after that do we start working. This is what lies at the heart of our strategic approach. It is based on the scale of thinking and strategic approach of a potential partner that we can see how much we are on the same page. It is also important that a project goal resonates with us. In addition, we need to clearly understand what a business or an organization we are considering collaborating with does.

We ask potential partners why they are implementing a particular initiative, what results they would like to see from their activities, and what their impact should be — it should definitely contribute to Ukraine’s visibility. Openness to cooperation is important, too, as in reality, not everyone is ready to work together. Sometimes, there is an element of competition. Sometimes, people want to analyze a potential partner, but at times, there is a completely different interest behind this, which they articulate to you. Experience quickly makes this apparent.

When building cooperation, we discuss many points at the start. We need to know where we can be valuable to our partners. We also openly tell about what matters to us. It is important for us to bring people together, strengthen communities, and build interactions between our partners. We are interested in who the organization has worked with before and who it works with now. Openness is vital in our partnerships. When we build interactions, we usually understand what our first steps will be and why we are doing this together.

Tetiana:

If people we know nothing about approach us about cooperation, we involve the communications department. They check that company’s reputation: whether it had worked with Russia and Belarus and when it had left those countries.

Where do you look for partners?

Tetiana:

Our partnerships evolve through live interaction. We travel around Ukraine and the world, communicate, learn from different experiences, and make new acquaintances through networking. There is also a certain bubble in the country, with people meeting and sharing personal recommendations.

Which aspects of your cooperation are handled legally and which ones are determined by trust?

Ella:

We are still setting this all up. While previously we built most of our partnerships based on the “talk, record, and move on” algorithm, now we gradually begin to legally secure some of the important points and record others in messengers and letters.

We sign either memoranda or cooperation agreements. The former are used when we understand that we don’t have any fixed projects yet but we record the main directions of our work with this partner. If we are jointly applying for a contest or planning to raise funds from another business or European programs, we sign an agreement outlining tactical steps. We also have strategic projects that last for years, and we clearly define the stages and areas of responsibility of our partners so that we can always check and analyze them.

During the implementation of an initiative, we try to analyze what we have done based on specific milestones. This works well and helps us understand how a particular activity contributed to the achievement of each partner’s objectives and the overall goal. Analysis along the way is very useful as it helps us immediately change what works not.

Do you form a pool of partners for future collaborations? How do you keep in touch with them?

Tetiana:

We have a lot of projects, i.e., 18 in early 2025. Each of them has a project manager who communicates with respective partners. We also have over 200 contacts with whom we have already discussed potential cooperation. I have established connections in my project that are still waiting for the right time and idea.

Ella:

Currently, Algorithm of Actions has launched projects such as the Dіia.Business Entrepreneur Support Center in Lutsk, misto.cafe social impact café, Abo Abo Creative Industries Development Center, Urban Vision, RE:Ukraine Housing Lutsk, and others. Each of them has dozens of partners that are strategic for the platform. If we see that we have several projects in common with one of these organizations, we keep our communication at the top management level. We have regular calls or meetings to follow each other’s plans and see how we can continue working together. This is the case, for example, with the 3MIN Foundation and the Teplе Misto platform.

Then, let’s move to the project level: Dіia.Business Lutsk, for example, is building the next category of partnerships around itself with a focus on small and medium-sized businesses. Or look at misto.cafe, which brings together at least 100 of its co-founders. Thus, every  project builds its own partnerships, and it is important for us that they all interact with each other.

We are currently testing various CRMs to add all contacts and record all interactions starting from the first meeting. With some organizations, we begin working together right away, with others we form clearer agreements at the second meeting, and there are also those waiting for their time. Each project records all its interactions in a table, which allows us to see how partnerships progress. We regularly analyze with whom cooperation has stopped and why and consider whether to resume communication.

Tetiana:

Our ecosystem has a rule: When one of our current or potential partners comes to Lutsk, we always give them a tour of our projects and introduce them to local organizations, businesses, and government officials. We create an individual itinerary for each of them. We realize who is coming and what these people will be interested in seeing in order to get acquainted with our platform and the city. Thus, we help establish contacts.

We have many collaborations in which we engage equally with very cool strategic partners. For example, Algorithm of Actions opened the Dіia.Business Entrepreneur Support Center in Lutsk together with the Ministry of Digital Transformation and local companies “ideil.” and “redesign.”

Ella:

We sometimes say that our ecosystem has internal and external circles. The former involves projects that we’ve launched together with our partners on our own initiative. In addition to those already mentioned, these include the square garden with the “Grain” sculpture and Urban Vision Lutsk, Pako House. There are also external circle organizations with which we work so closely that people sometimes perceive us as one entity. These regard, for example, the GaRmYder theater, misto.rebut urban organization, Frontera literary platform, Gallery 4/8, Street Culture, and Brainstorm NGO. These are city partners that we currently consider to be among the most active ones in our community. They work strategically and have their own target audience.

Our excursions do work. For example, last year, foreign media came to Frontera, and then the Portuguese media published a large article on GaRmYder . This is great, because the theater has made a name for itself in the world, which enhances the visibility of both the city and Ukraine.

How do you bring different partners together in joint projects? Do they see and appreciate this work?

Ella:

In fact, even within our team of 38 people, we ourselves don’t realize how much we do and how much of this work is invisible. We have seven focus areas — education, culture, art, economics, urbanism, science, and media — around which we build everything. I hope that within 7–10 years we will have seven creative hubs, each bringing together activists in a particular field as well as all our projects. And so we are trying, as the director of the 3MIN Foundation, Khrystyna Boyko, says, to “tie knots” — i.e., connect different organizations with each other. Previously, we did this on an ad hoc basis, but now it has become a full-fledged activity that takes a lot of time because we don’t have a community manager despite being a community organization.

Another story is ongoing support, when we guide a partner from the very beginning as there is a great idea but a lot of work still needs to be done. We help them form a team, find a balance between “firefighting” and strategy, and much more.

We haven’t yet developed these processes into a separate direction, though we want to do so. Are our partners aware of this? Probably not at this stage. They will realize this when everything is clearly stated.

In multilateral interactions, how do you agree with partners on the areas of influence and the voice they have?

Ella:

I don’t have a recipe yet. We try to resolve everything in the moment if any conflicts arise, but in reality, a lot depends on what was discussed at the start. We’ve had a few situations where projects were launched without discussing each partner’s expectations, and they ended up in a formally polite way. We learned our lesson. We now clearly say who will be involved in a specific initiative and who has the final say.

Is there any communication with partners that covers everyone?

Tetiana:

Today, many things still rely on individual communication. We need to formalize this process and establish a centralized system for disseminating information among all partners like we have already done within our internal ecosystem — here, we have a weekly report. We also constantly talk about all our projects on social media and the Algorithm of Action website.

What do you and your partners do to keep this project under control?

Ella:

If we see that a project is losing relevance and people are no longer responding to it, we restructure it. If it contributes to the goals that are important to us, our partners, and our audience and receives positive feedback, there is no need to change anything. However, we are constantly trying to come up with new formats and new topics.

How do you present yourself to potential partners?

Ella:

It very much depends on the event where we meet, since it gives us a hint on what kind of project will be more interesting to that person. If it’s something related to creative industries and culture, where there will definitely be several organizations specializing in cultural diplomacy, I’ll talk about Abo Abo. If the event is business-related, I’ll talk about Diia.Business, Abo Abo, and the whole system of organizations working to attract investment to our region.

We now actively engage with foreign partners, and when they come here, the story of a civic society organization created by businesses is quite incomprehensible to them. So, in our communication, we, rather than talk about our implemented projects, explain how the idea of Algorithm of Actions came about in the first place, how it transformed into a civic society organization, and why local businesses support it institutionally.

You have experience interacting with very different partners: those operating in your sector, the business, and the state. What are the nuances or difficulties facing these collaborations?

Ella:

When it comes to partnering with someone, we don’t see any obstacles. We understand that the mechanics of cooperation with small businesses are different from those with large ones. The mechanics of cooperation with a regional council are different from those with a city one, while those with ministries differ from the former two. Here, experience allows us to anticipate risks at once.

Of course, some collaborations are easier and faster than others. For example, it is much easier for us to negotiate and agree on cooperation in the civic society sector. It is faster to involve small and medium-sized businesses in our work, whereas large market players will take much time to consider our offers.

Tetiana:

Here’s another important point: Speak the language that your partner understands, because power is about social influence. For example, I had a case where government officials were significantly concerned about hate. Hence, our communication involved taking the risk upon ourselves and explaining the project’s positive impact on the city. In other words, this is about trusting relationships.

Business is very often about figures. We are not talking about any specific business interests in terms of money, but these partners want to know the figures and the reach, they want to understand who the people we reach are, see their portraits, and so on.

The civic society sector is about qualitative changes; it is more about visionary things. This is what Algorithm of Actions actually does: We ensure quality changes to the city.

I joined the platform founded by the business while coming from the same field, and I hence knew the language well. Still, we realized that our main activity was in the civic society sector, where none of us had any experience. We invited Ella, and she headed her department. Our small team has grown to 38 people, since with each new interaction, we saw where we needed reinforcement. And now, our team is also thinking about who should approach which potential partners to better present and explain our idea.

Have you ever faced a crisis in the project? What was it caused by?

Ella:

Problems arise often, but we treat them as part of our work. When something happens, we rebuilt it and continue working. We have a fairly flexible team with good experience. That is, if you understand that you involve not only beginners, but also people already experienced working in different conditions, and you have developed action plans for any unpredictable situations, there will be no problems that you can’t solve.

Tetiana:

Our corporate culture has it that we don’t engage in any conflicts or fight with anyone. Besides, we try to anticipate risks.

Ella:

Most fuckups regard communication — something said incorrectly, something not anticipated, or a trouble faced. The rest we keep within our expertise. I emphasize this because if something internal can be quickly fixed and few people will see it, or if it’s a matter of your wallet, in the public sphere, one post is enough to launch the “jackal express.”

That’s why we have a communications specialist responsible exactly for crisis communications. She is informed about all our projects, and as soon as she sees that someone in chats wants to launch a campaign and she feels that there may be a problem, she immediately comes and tells about it. I highly recommend having such a person on the team.

How can project managers in long-term partnerships avoid burnouts?

Tetiana:

First of all, I believe it’s also the person’s own responsibility to take care of their mental health and get enough sleep, eat, and exercise. I always remind myself of this. Secondly, we have a very flexible work schedule, and if there was shelling yesterday, perhaps the person should have some more sleep today. We develop our internal corporate culture and try to organize team-building events so that people can relax. We also have psychological support, by the way.

Ella:

There are three things we are actively working on. First, from the moment of the interview, when we understand that the person joins the team, we build a culture of sincerity and openness and encourage people not to be afraid to voice their concerns when talking to a leader or CEO. Second, I tell everyone that if they encounter any difficulties, they can always come to me and talk about that. Third, we try to ensure that there is no feeling of irreplaceability. The point is that people should not drown in the moment of responsibility for something — they need to know that they can be backed up.

The culture of gratitude is important, too, so that good specialists don’t leave the team when they don’t receive enough feedback, gratitude, or positive energy after a successfully implemented large-scale initiative. The story of engagement also makes sense: People on the team need to understand that no matter what level you are at or what position you hold in the project, you are an important part of it. They really need to sincerely believe that they are part of this and that they are involved in building the entire organization and achieving a common vision.