Collaborations: Why They Fail

Collaborations:  Why They Fail

There are many reasons why organizations decide to collaborate: financial stability, services diversification and expansion, to avoid extinction and to share revenue and funding sources,[1] to name a few.   Collaborations can be short term or permanent, depending on the common objective that cannot be achieved by either party independently.    They can be inter-sectional: a nonprofit organization and a government agency, a government agency and a for profit, and a nonprofit and a for profit.  Inter-sectional collaborations are complex because of the unique constituencies they serve, their distinct stakeholders, and the funders to whom they are accountable.  For profits such as Timberland[2] answer to their shareholders, not their employees; profit is the driver of decisions.  Service-oriented government agencies such as the Massachusetts Department of Social Services[3] (MDSS) are accountable to legislative bodies and are funded by appropriations bills.  Nonprofits like La Alianza Hispana (LAH) are accountable to their distinct cultural community, the clients that are served, and their donors.

The characteristics of successful collaborations among organizations vary according to their purpose.  Some key components to consider are: 1) a shared purpose or vision, 2) a similar client-stakeholder base, 3) sufficient trust, 4) a strategic plan, and 5) inclusive communication, not just among top officers and management but employees, volunteers and stakeholders as well.[4]  Three case studies, the Seattle Art Museum,[5] Timberland, and the Massachusetts Department of Social Services exemplify common challenges and why collaborations can weaken, fail or never move forward.

Two nonprofits, the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and the First Things First (FTF) Coalition united to avoid losing an election that would fund either the Seattle Art Museum Project or the First Things First low-income housing initiative.  Theirs was a defensive collaboration, with a short-term, narrow shared vision to bring about a win-win outcome resulting in funding for both organizations.  Their constituencies and missions were dissimilar, trust was tenuous and strategic campaign planning one-sided.  Neither organization engaged with opposite party stakeholders.  Communication by SAM did not flow outward to FTF’s extensive coalition or downward to its army of volunteers, and thereby justified their mistrust of SAM's motives.  Nearing the election, SAM found that FTF had stronger public support.                    

Collaboration attempts between the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (MDSS) and the nonprofit La Alianza Hispana (LAH) didn’t work because of their opposing visions of child protection and what that meant.  The constituencies that both organizations served were similar; however, LAH believed that the methods used by MDSS, removing children from their families, were culturally inappropriate and counterproductive to their mission of keeping families together.   Also, subsumed by the bureaucratic structure of MDSS, LAH knew that it would not be treated as an equal, that it would lose its autonomy, identity and standing in the Hispanic community.  According to LAH’s board chairman, there was no basis for trust; he threatened to resign if the board agreed to move forward.

In contrast, the partnership between the for profit Timberland Company and the nonprofit City Year was symbiotic, fueled by a similar passion for social justice remediated through volunteerism by City Year’s corps of volunteers, in which Timberland largely invested.  For several years, the partnership enjoyed national attention, prestige and enormous profits for Timberland.   Then the government withdrew its support for City Year’s national AmeriCore volunteer program, cutting one half of the nonprofit’s $14 million annual budget. Concurrently, the economy declined and Timberland’s profit margin collapsed, to the extent that many employees were laid off.  The employees were resentful of City Year, who they felt had caused the layoffs.

The collaboration ultimately failed.  It wanted for a strategic plan for financial sustainability to offset a disproportionate reliance on Timberland for funding.  There was no long-term vision of the partnership; employees and stakeholders had no understanding of what the partnership entailed.  Communication between the organizations was at the management level, with no widespread communication of a vision at all levels.  Employees were involved only at the volunteer level.  It is no wonder they were resentful.

Examples such as these can be used in positive ways to forewarn against failure.

---

[1] Yankey, J.A., Jacobus, B.W. and Koney, K. M., Merging Nonprofit Organizations: The Art and Science of the Deal, Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Cleveland, Ohio, 2001.

[2] Timberland and Community Involvement, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA, August 1996.

[3] Partners in Child Protection Services: The Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1996.

[4] “Best Practices Summary: Collaboration, Coalition-Building and Merger,” United Way Worldwide, 2008.

[5] Funding Seattle’s Art Museum and Low-Income Housing: The Politics of Interest Groups and Tax Levies, Cascade Center for Public Service, Curriculum Exchange, 1996.

Collaboration: Are We Stronger Separate or Together?

Are we stronger separate or together?  When looking at collaboration between organizations there are many considerations that must be made.  In their article, “Best Practices Summary: Collaboration, Coalition Building and Merger,” United Way Worldwide (2008) gives an articulate description of the benefits of collaboration by stating that “collaboration can be a vehicle for expansion into new areas of service requiring the resources of more than one organization or to proactively address an emerging community issue.”  However, collaboration does not come without unique challenges.  Furthermore, as seen through the three case studies presented in class, there are unique opportunities and challenges associated with collaboration across different sectors. 

Nonprofit-Government

The case of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) and La Alianza Hispana gives an example of potential collaboration between a nonprofit agency and a government agency.  Sharma and Missey (1998) describe that to have a successful collaboration, organizations must have a “shared vision.”  In this case, the two agencies did have the common vision of improving conditions for the Hispanic population in Massachusetts.  However, there was little “mutual respect, understanding, and trust,” and the collaboration did not seem to be in the self-interest of both parties (Sharma and Missey, 2008).  As a government agency, DSS provided funding to La Alianza and used this as a bargaining chip in encouraging them to partner with them; the relationship was not built out of a place of trust and mutuality.  DSS would likely have benefited by being better able serve minority families, but La Alianza would likely have lost the trusting relationship that they had developed with the Hispanic community and experience mission drift.     

Government agencies have a substantial amount of power and influence in society and building collaborations based on trust and mutual gain can be tricky in light of this.  These relationships have the potential to be very successful, as many nonprofits are working to meet the same ends as government agencies, particularly in the social service sector.  However, there must be clear communication, equal benefit to each party, and trust between those involved.            

Nonprofit-Nonprofit

Collaboration between nonprofit agencies at its surface may appear to be straightforward since they would share a common structure.  However, many nonprofits work to achieve very different missions, such as in the case of Citizens for a Better Seattle.  In this case the two organizations had very different missions but there was a unique opportunity for them to combine their resources and work towards a common, short-term goal.  Instead of competing for resources and votes, the organizations decided that it would be mutually beneficial to work together. 

In doing this, they confronted challenges experienced by many coalitions such as “unclear roles and expectations of member organizations” (United Way Worldwide, 2008).  While roles were defined, each organization had different resources to offer: the Seattle Art Museum primarily provided financial resources and First Things First primarily provided a strong volunteer base.  Each organization contributed a substantial amount of resources to the coalition, but the difference in type of resource along with each organization having very individual missions was cause for some lack of trust and inequality throughout the process.     

Nonprofit-For Profit

As seen with in the case of the partnership between Timberland and City Year, there are unique opportunities for partnerships between nonprofit and for profit entities.  Obviously, these entities are going to have different goals solely based on their structure; for profit agencies aim to make money through offering a particular product or service and this is not the goal of nonprofit agencies.  However, as discussed previously, one of the most necessary components of a successful partnership is that each party must have a stake in the collaboration and see the partnership as benefitting their own self-interest which is possible between nonprofit and for profit sectors. 

In the case of Timberland and City Year, Timberland was benefitting from the partnership through being able to offer its employees a strong sense of community built through volunteering with City Year which may have helped to increase productivity.  Furthermore, Timberland gained the image of being a progressive and social justice oriented business which had the power to attract customers.  City Year gained financial resources as well as Timberland apparel for its members.  The main challenge associated with this case is a challenge that is faced across all sectors, and that is lack of shared vision and planning.  Collaboration takes a significant amount of planning and it is necessary to have a shared vision to guide this plan (Sharma and Missey, 2008).  In this particular collaboration, these essential components were not fully developed.  

References:

Elias, Jean (1996).  "Timberland and Community Involvement."  Harvard Business School 

"Funding Seattle's New Art Museum and Low-Income Housing: The Politics of Interest Groups and Tax Levies (A)" (1996).  Cascade Center for Public Service, Public Service Curriculum Exchange

Sharma and Missey (1998).  "How I Learned to Stop Griping and Love Collaboration."  Volunteer Center of Bergen County, Inc.   

United Way Worldwide (2008).  "Best Practices Summary: Collaboration, Coalition-Building and Merger."

Varley, Pamela (1996).  "Partners in Child Protective Services: The Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana."  John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Collaboration: A Modern Reality of Problem-Solving

“Collaboration is not just another organizational skill. It is the hallmark—the distinguishing characteristic—of the future focused nonprofit.” —United Way Worldwide, 2008

In the nonprofit world, it is rare to find an issue with a simple fix. Rather, problems that nonprofits seek to address are increasingly complex. Take, for example, the issue of child maltreatment in our country—an issue that hundreds of nonprofit organizations across the country work to address. Obviously, there is no “quick fix” solution to child maltreatment; we can’t simply tell caregivers “don’t abuse your kids” and expect the problem to go away. Instead, decreasing child maltreatment incidence rates requires a broad spectrum of interventions (primary, secondary, and tertiary) at all levels of society (individual, community, and systems levels) and involving a plethora of services (parenting education, assurance of quality child care, public awareness campaigns, health services, child welfare interventions… the list goes on and on). Clearly, no single organization can meet all of these needs alone—almost definitely not at a community-level, and certainly not at more macro-levels. Instead, nonprofits who want to make large scale impacts (on this, or any other issue) must consider collaboration (Sharma & Missey, 2008; Varley, 1996).

Collaboration happens when groups make a commitment to work together toward a common objective (United Way Worldwide, 2008; Yankey & Willen, 2005). These collaborations can happen both within or across the three sectors of society (i.e., nonprofits, government, and for-profits), and, when done correctly, help to conserve resources, address issues in a more comprehensive way, identify service gaps, reduce service duplications, and “reduce conflicts by squarely addressing issues of competition and ‘turf’” (United Way Worldwide, 2008). Whatever the nature of the collaboration, success depends on developing and promoting a shared vision, a sound process, open communication, an atmosphere of trust, effective leadership, and, of course, hard work at both the procedural and systems levels (Sharma & Missey, 2008; Yankey & Willen, 2005).

Of course, collaboration comes with its own set of challenges. Yankey and Willen (2005) identify the following challenges to strategic alliance formation and implementation:

• Incompatible mission, vision, values, and/or culture. This issue is perhaps most apparent in collaborations across sectors, where each sector’s role is, by definition, unique and separate from that of the others. Take, for example, the collaboration between City Year (a nonprofit) and Timberland (a for-profit). From the get-go, there were issues of buy-in from both organizations due to perceived mission mismatch (Elias, 1996).
• Egos and turf issues. In our competitive society, many individuals and organizations believe that organizational survival should be pursued at any cost, and that, to be viable, an organization must remain totally independent. Failure to place a “shared mission and the good of the community above loyalty to one’s own agency” can derail potentially beneficial alliances (Yankey & Willen, 2005, p. 267)
• Cost. Both time costs (e.g., operationalizing the collaboration, establishing roles) and funding costs (e.g., costs of facilitation, systems integration), can be a major barrier to collaboration. Additionally, there may be differences of opinions around prioritizing funding (see, for example, the case of Seattle’s Art Museum and First Things First where there were differences of opinion over prioritizing funding needs) (Public Service Curriculum Exchange, 1996).

Despite these barriers, strategic alliances remain “the modern reality of collaborative problem-solving” (Salamon, 1999, p. 179) in response to society’s needs, and nonprofits should strive to be increasingly capable of working collaboratively with the business sector, the government, and each other.

References

United Way Worldwide. (2008). Best practices summary: Collaboration, coalition-building and merger.

Sharma, J. & Missey, A. (2008). How I learned to stop griping… And love collaboration. National Community Service Organization.

Varley, P. (1996). Partners in Child Protection Services: Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana. Kennedy School of Government Case Program.

Yankey, J. A. & Willen, C. K. (2005). Strategic Alliances. In R. D. Herman (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (pp. 254-273). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Elias, J. (1996). Timberland and community involvement. Harvard Business School.

Public Service Curriculum Exchange (1996). Funding Seattle’s Art Museum and low-income housing: The politics of interest groups and tax levies.

Salamon, L. M. (1999). America’s nonprofit sector: A primer. (2nd ed.) New York, NY: Foundation Center.

Collaboration: Another Opportunity to Prove the Power of the Strategic Plan

Collaboration can take many forms occurring across sectors or within a single sector. Each type of partnership presents a different set of opportunities and challenges as well as unique issues. In our class, we learned about three types of collaboration in detail: nonprofit and government, nonprofit and for-profit, and two nonprofits.

Nonprofit and Government

The Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) and La Alianza Hispana (La Alianza) joined forces in order to improve the DSS’s ability to provide culturally competent services in Boston. DSS lacked community credibility; La Alianza had a strong and valued reputation. As a government agency DSS had many resources and developed structures valuable to a small, community funded group like La Alianza. On the other hand, La Alianza’s reputation and cultural knowledge were of great interest to DSS.

The potential benefits of a collaboration between the two entities were:

·        Identifying gaps in current services and cooperate to fill gaps;

·        Share similar concerns while being enriched by diverse perspectives that different members from varied backgrounds bring to collaboration. (United Way, 2008)

Unfortunately, the collaborative partnership was unbalanced. Factors that influence successful collaboration were absent in a contract that DSS proposed. The process and structural factors that challenged this collaboration were the absence of a shared stake in the ownership by members of both agencies, flexibility, and a shared decision making model (Sharma & Missey, 1998).

Nonprofit and For-profit

City Year and Timberland partnered over a joint interest in making the world a better place. Mutual respect and shared vision drove the partnership, and for a period of several years both City Year and Timberland benefitted from the collaboration. The partnership had a solid foundation of accessible financial resources and a commitment to the vision of City Year, but was challenged by lack of a strategic plan.

When resources became limited as City Year lost government funding and Timberland posted their first annual loss the future was uncertain. According to Michael Winer-Cyr of the Amherst Wilder Foundation, collaboration is: “A mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by two or more organizations to achieve common goals.” (United Way, 2008). Where City Year and Timberland were challenged was in the “well-defined relationship” portion of collaboration; when hard economic times entered the picture, neither entity had a plan for the future of the collaboration.

Two Nonprofits

An unlikely friendship was struck between the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and First Things First (FTF) when a tax levy was proposed that would benefit both groups. FTF was a coalition that advocated for low income housing and was skilled in grassroots community engagement; SAM on the other hand was a favored by blue chip patrons… the potential benefits from the collaboration were:

·        Mobilized action to effect needed change through collective advocacy;

·        To achieve greater visibility with decision-makers, the media, and the larger community (United Way, 2008)

The challenges SAM and FTF experienced in their partnership had much to do with trust and mutual respect. The differences that brought them together also created tension because the purpose of the collaboration was not clearly defined to volunteers and agency members. Since each group was very different from the other, more time needed to be invested in building trust.

Collaboration can be beneficial in any of the forms it may take. For collaboration to be successful, the relationship must emphasize balance, have a planned direction, and promote communication with all stakeholders. Strategic planning is necessary to address all of the potential issues in collaboration to ensure an advantageous partnership.

References

Elias, J. 1996. Timberland and Community Involvement. Supervisor James Austin. Harvard Business School Publishing. Boston, MA.

Fortier, S. 1996. Funding Seattle’s Art Museum and Low-Income Housing: The Politics of Interest Groups and Tax Levies (A). Supervisor Jon Brock. Cascade Center for Public Service: Public Service Curriculum Exchange.

Sharma, Janet and Amanda Missey. 1998. “How I learned to Stop Griping . . . And Love Collaboration.” From a presentation at the National Community Service Conference. June 30, 1998. New Orleans, LA.

United Way. 2008. “Best Practices Summary: Collaboration, Coalition-Building, and Merger.”

Varley, P. 1996. Partners in Child Protection Services: The Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana (A). Abridged. Kennedy School of Government. Boston, MA

Are Organizations Stronger Together than Alone?

”High-impact nonprofits work with and through organizations and individuals outside themselves to create more impact than they ever could have achieved alone.” This conclusion, based on a study of 12 impactful nonprofits, illustrates the strength of collaborations. (McLeod Grant & Crutchfield, 2007) In this blog, I will draw on three case studies to outline important opportunities and challenges of collaboration. Not only have these organizations expanded beyond their own walls but also into different sectors – we will learn from the collaboration between a nonprofit and 1) a governmental organization 2) another nonprofit and 3) a for-profit organization.

The collaboration between the Department of Social Services (DSS) and La Alianza Hispana essentially addresses the appropriateness for a governmental organization to outsource services through contractual agreements with nonprofits/private service providers. Many of the challenges in this particular case can be applied more broadly. La Alianza has access to the target group, and has a strong track record of providing services within its current portfolio – but lacks the case management and legal experience necessary to deliver this service.  (Varley, 1996) Questions for nonprofits to consider include: When are you in the position to turn down money from major contributors to favor the organization’s mission? When is a change of mission legitimized? Does the organization possess the capabilities required to deliver the services?

Despite the considerably different missions of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and the promoters of low-income housing, First Things First (FCF), their shared interest of winning the vote results in them forming a coalition. (Yankey & Willen, 2010; Yankey et. al, 2001) There is a lot to learn from the coalition’s ability to leverage the two organization’s different resources - financial resources from SAM and human resources (volunteers) from FCF. (Fortier, 1996) A recurring challenge in both this case and the next, is aligning all the stakeholders of the two organizations – so that it is not only the leaders (whether it is the coalition leadership or the dedicated CEO) that recognize and work towards the shared interest.

The Timberland – City Year partnership is an example of a partnership that developed from a dedicated community partnership to an extensive national partnership. The partnership is never critically assessed – there is no urgent need to make a plan for long-term sustainability as long as both organizations are advancing and Timberland maintains its high levels of profitability. Instead, City Year’s operations come to rely more and more heavily on Timberland’s financial contribution. At the point when numbers turn red, we are reminded that the missions may not be as compatible as outlined, and that the two organization’s stakeholders are different – Timberland’s stakeholders will most likely not prioritize social returns over financial. (Elias, 1996)

From my understanding of the case Timberland got a lot out of the partnership - its reputation bolstered and operations were potentially improved through Year Up activities including employee training sessions. Consequently, a question that comes up is how to put a price tag on the services, the exposure and the for-profit’s association with the brand of a nonprofit. While some companies may pay a price higher than market price of an abstract valuation – I believe many nonprofits may underestimate their investment in the partnership as it is more difficult to measure (even though there are certainly cases when it is the other way around).

Evidently, many challenges and opportunities can be traced back to the different focuses of the sectors, also described in the January blogs (http://uwlafollette.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html). In the end, a successful partnership is evaluated differently depending on what weight you put on different returns – to what extent has it promoted social return (cause), financial return and public opinion?

References

Elias, J. 1996. Timberland and Community Involvement. Supervisor James Austin. Harvard Business School Publishing. Boston, MA.

Fortier, S. 1996. Funding Seattle’s Art Museum and Low-Income Housing: The Politics of Interest Groups and Tax Levies (A). Supervisor Jon Brock. Cascade Center for Public Service: Public Service Curriculum Exchange.

McLeod Grant, H. & Crutchfield, L., R. 2007. Creating High-Impact Nonprofits. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Retrieved from: http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/creating_high_impact_nonprofits/

Yankey, J. A., Wester Jacobus, B. & McNally Koney, K. 2001. Merging Nonprofit Organizations: The Art and Science of the Deal. Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations: Cleveland, OH.

Yankey, J.A. & Willen, C.K. 2010. Collaboration and Strategic Alliances in The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management. Renz, David O, ed. 375-400. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA. 

Varley, P. 1996. Partners in Child Protection Services: The Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana (A). Abridged. Kennedy School of Government. Boston, MA.

The Sky's the Limit!: Collaboration and Your Organization

Nonprofit collaborations have proliferated in recent years, both in number and array of collaboration styles. Nonprofits can partner intersectorally; government, private, other nonprofits, the sky’s the limit! These collaborations can also take a huge variety of forms including co-sponsorship, federation, coalition, consortium, network, joint venture, parent-subsidiary, merger and consolidation (Yankey, Jacobus, and Koney 2001). This diversity makes it hard to prescribe best practices for collaborations, but there are some key threads that we can pull out from the experiences of various nonprofits who have undergone collaborative processes.

Do what you do

Keep your mission. Play to your strengths. Incompatible missions are a primary challenge in collaboration (Yankey and Willen 2010). Organizations have to know where they stand and what goals they hope to achieve through this partnership. A side-by-side analysis early in the exploratory process of a collaboration can often help to hash out these details (Yankey and Willen 2010). This doesn’t mean that organizations with very different missions can’t collaborate; in fact it’s sometimes successful for very different organizations to band together if they have a goal in common. An example of this occurred in Seattle in a collaborative ballot initiative between an arts museum and a low-income housing project which secured funding for facilities expansion for both groups (Fortier 1996). The shared goal of winning the vote was in line with both of their very different missions, so it worked.

Balance internal and external environments  

Many collaborations arise out of a desire to strategically address external pressures like increasing funding or service provision. A favorable political and social environment for the merger is important for success (Sharma and Missey 1998). However success also depends upon keeping staff informed and securing their buy-in. Internal organizational culture differences can be a challenge in creating a successful partnership (Yankey and Willen 2010). This was a key consideration in a case where a Hispanic community center considered taking on child abuse case management from the state protective services in Boston.  Of primary concern was how this work would negatively affect their reputation in the community and thus their ability to carry out their mission. Significant doubts among board members about the benefits of the partnership also raised red flags (Varley 1996). While this analysis doesn’t bode well for the collaboration, it is a good demonstration of how an organization should consider the full impacts of partnership beyond financial gain.

Plan, plan, PLAN

Going into a collaboration, organizations should know exactly what they hope to get out of the partnership, how they intend to go about doing it, and how these plans support the missions of the organizations and will strategically advance the position of both in their communities (Yankey, Jacobus and Koney 2001). Developing a sound process for collaboration with clear roles and policy guidelines can go a long way towards to smoothing what may otherwise be a difficult transition (Yankey and Willen 2010, Sharma and Missey 1998). The negative consequences of entering into a partnership without taking time to plan the intention and implementation the union are demonstrated in the story of collaboration between the shoe manufacturer Timberland and the community service program City Year. This partnership began well and expanded quickly, but without a plan to guide the growth and intention of the collaboration, tensions between and within the two organizations eventually ended the partnership (Elias 1996).

Because there are so many possible combinations of sectors and types of collaborations, there is no cookie cutter process for pursuing a strategic alliance. But keeping these three things in mind will help organizations choose valuable alliances and succeed in their implementation.  

References

Elias, Jaan. 1996. “Timberland and Community Involvement.” Supervisor, James Austin. Harvard Business School Publishing. Boston, MA.

Fortier, Suzanne. 1996. “Funding Seattle’s Art Museum and Low-Income Housing: The Politics of Interest Groups and Tax Levies (A).” Supervisor, Jon Brock. Cascade Center for Public Service: Public Service Curriculum Exchange.

Sharma, Janet and Amanda Missey. 1998. “How I learned to Stop Griping . . . And Love Collaboration.” From a presentation at the National Community Service Conference. June 30, 1998. New Orleans, LA.

Varley, Pamela. 1996. “Partners in Child Protection Services: The Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana (A).” Abridged. Kennedy School of Government. Boston, MA.

Yankey, John A., Barbara Wester Jacobus, and Kelly McNally Koney. 2001. Merging Nonprofit Organizations: The Art and Science of the Deal. Mandel center for Nonprofit Organizations: Cleveland, OH.

Yankey, John A. and Carol K. Willen. 2010. “Collaboration and Strategic Alliances.” in The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management. Renz, David O, ed. 375-400. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA. 

Challenges of Collaborating Across Sectors:

Collaboration can yield great results: bringing together different groups, saving money, accomplishing goals that would be unattainable for one organization, and providing better services and products to the public. Unfortunately, collaboration, particularly across sectors, is often rife with challenges. Henry Kippin writes for The Guardian, “Dysfunctional relationships between the public, private and social sectors emerge, in part, because of a lack of empathy and understanding, which drives misalignment of incentives and misunderstanding of values.” Let’s look at three case studies to see what Kippin means.

The Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) and La Alianza Hispana had the opportunity to collaborate to better deliver services to the Hispanic population in the area. Unfortunately, the potential collaboration between the governmental agency and nonprofit began several with issues. First, how would startup of the partnership be funded? DSS planned to provide funds to run the program but not to startup the collaboration. Additionally, power dynamics plagued the partnership with DSS threatening to pull an existing contract with La Alianza Hispana if they did not work on the new project together. This power play shows a lack of empathy towards La Alianza as DSS was unconcerned about what pulling funding would mean for the nonprofit. Unequal power dynamics as shown in this case are a key issue for government-nonprofit collaboration as the government is often the provider of funds for the nonprofit!

In a second example, we see the Seattle Art Museum and First Things First coming together to get two referendums passed. The referendums did not align; one was about low-income housing, and the other to fund the art museum, but the two nonprofits knew that if they came together and campaigned jointly they could bring about change that they could not bring about independently. Unfortunately, this partnership faced challenges including unequal involvement of the partners. According to a United Way publication (2008) equal involvement is crucial in collaborations. Nonprofit collaborations in particular may struggle to with equal involvement from both parties as both are often taxed in resources (both staff time and financial resources).

A third example of a collaboration is between a nonprofit, City Year (a service corps) and for-profit, Timberland Boots (a company selling apparel and boots). The two collaborated in a number of ways culminating in a joint line of City Year Gear.  Unfortunately, this collaboration also faced challenges with a lack of planning and vision for the partnership.  In particular, this lack of planning exacerbated a common challenge nonprofit and for-profit collaborations face, misunderstanding of values as both are not focused on bringing in profit.

Overall, collaborations across all sectors face common challenges of lack of communication and trust in the partnership (Sharma and Missey 1998).  Henry Kippin of The Guardian notes, “Working together requires trust, communication, humility and a shared understanding of purpose and outcomes.” If each partner brings these to the table and continues to trust and communicate throughout the process, collaborations can succeed.  With increased communication and trust all of the issues mentioned in the above cases with power dynamics, unequal involvement of parties, and a lack of planning and vision can all be addressed early on in the collaboration bringing about a successful venture.