Organizations
operating in the public, private and non-profit sectors have unique
characteristics, resources and goals. This suggests that cross-sector (or
intra-sector) collaboration can be an effective way to maximize output or
impact, provided the organizations involved utilize best practices to deal with
the challenges specific to collaboration.
I’ll compare, and contrast, three
case studies to discuss these opportunities and challenges. The first case
involves the corporation, Timberland, and the non-profit organization, City
Year. Timberland’s COO, Jeffrey Swartz, wanted to improve the company’s
community involvement, and the partnership he formed with City Year was seen by
many observers as a “new paradigm” in cooperation between private and nonprofit
organizations. Under Swartz’s leadership, Timberland made significant financial
contributions to City Year, helping to solidify City Year’s revenue stream and
forming an inextricable link between the two organizations. Timberland even
used its expertise in creating quality apparel to create a City Year product
line, which helped both organizations achieve greater visibility. When
Timberland’s sales began to level-off, and City Year’s government funding began
to dry up, the collaboration encountered challenges. Among the nineteen factors
influencing successful collaborations identified in the handbook, Collaboration: What Makes It Work is
having sufficient funds (Mattessich, p. 138). City Year and Timberland
understood that for this ‘new paradigm’ to work, both organizations would have
to be financially stable, independent of what was happening in the others’
business. Ultimately, however, this collaboration was successful because the
organizations shared a common passion, which enabled each party to reap
benefits.
We can contrast this case with the
collaboration between two nonprofit organizations in Seattle: the Seattle Art
Museum and the housing coalition, First Things First. John Yankey’s piece on
the ‘Art and Science of the Deal’ for collaboration between nonprofits lists
several criteria for identifying potential collaborators, including, “Similar
mission and values” and “consistent
vision for the future” (Yankey, p. 19). In the Seattle case, the two
organizations failed to check any of these boxes: their missions were
drastically different, and some felt they were even diametrically opposed. Yet
the organizations enjoyed a successful collaboration because they worked hard
on the relationship, soothing over the wrinkles of mistrust by allocating the
resources specific to each organization in an effective way. The Museum used
its political clout to win over government officials wary of the First Things
First coalition’s apparent un-readiness for a major project, and the housing
coalition used its grassroots volunteers and strong public standing to help
push a ballot initiative over the necessary threshold.
However, a strong link in mission or
values doesn’t always lead to a successful collaboration. The Massachusetts
Department of Social Services (DSS), responsible for protecting the welfare of
abused and neglected children, sought to partner with La Alianza, a nonprofit
serving the Hispanic community, in order to add an element of ‘cultural
sensitivity’ to the public organization’s work. La Alianza, whose mission was “focused
on meeting basic needs to enable our constituents to take further steps up the
social and economic ladder” (Varley, p. 4), clearly had goals similar those
held by the public organization, and had been aware of cultural insensitivity
on the part of DSS in some of its interactions with members of the Hispanic
community. However, in a similar situation to that of the City Year/Timberland
partnership, the funding model offered a significant complication. La Alianza’s
leaders wondered if the ‘block grant’ they were to receive under the
partnership would sufficiently cover its costs, while DSS was unsure of what it
could realistically expect from La Alianza, and questioned its ability to step
in and offer help post-merger.
These examples demonstrate that
there are both opportunities and challenges associated with collaboration. A
clear takeaway from all three cases is the importance of strategic planning and
communication: if the issues discussed above are thoroughly accounted, and
planned, for before and during the collaboration, organizations can achieve
greater impact by utilizing the unique resources possessed by differential
organizations.
References:
Elias, Jaan. Timberland and Community Involvement. Boston:
Harvard Business School Publishing, 1996
Varley, Pamela. Partners in Child Protection Services: The
Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana. Boston: President and
Fellows of Harvard College, 1996.
Mattessich,
Paul; Monsey, Barbara. Collaboration:
What Makes It Work. St. Paul: Wilder
Publishing
Center.
Yankey, John;
Jacobus, Barbara Wester; Koney, Kelly McNally. Merging Nonprofit
Organizations: The Art and Science of the
Deal. Cleveland: Mandel
Center for Nonprofit Organizations
Best Practices Summary: Collaboration,
Coalition-Building and Merger.
United Way Worldwide, 2008.
