Moving for What Matters

Oppression reinvents itself and creeps its way into every facet of our human existence which means the act of devaluing of ‘others’’ lives gets harder and harder to spot if you’re not aware of our history in the US. Diversity encompasses all identities and forms of human experience including, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, religion, ability status, LGBTQ identity, age, gender identity, and language. I won’t be able to tackle all identities in one post, so I will address race and LGBTQ identity.

Collaboration Analysis

Collaborations boil down to human relationships and the mutual interactions of multiple types of those relationships. Oftentimes we get caught up in the logistics and big picture strategic planning where people end up talking about systems and not people. It is easy to lose sight of an organization’s purpose when there are different visions of the broad agenda. The NASW Code of Ethics includes six core values, including two I plan to mention throughout this assessment to demonstrate how to maintain shared focus: the importance of human relationships and competence. It is integral to an organization’s health that leaders recognize the worth of each individual and the power that is created when one can connect all of those individuals in a productive way. It is also important to recognize an organization’s limits in what services it can provide to a community and what services it cannot.

Organizational partnerships carry various challenges. Establishing trust, effective communication, having a shared vision and resources, and incorporating shared decision making and strategic planning among all parties work together to foster strong collaborations (United Way, 2008). Three separate cases are presented below: a nonprofit-nonprofit collaboration, a nonprofit-public collaboration, and a nonprofit-private collaboration.

Strategic Planning; It's About Winning

According to Hamel and Prahalad (1989),“..strategic intent is more than simply unfettered ambition.” Strategic intent is slightly different than, yet related to, strategic planning, which can be defined by the Balanced Scorecard Institute as, “an organizational management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results, and assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment.” With all of those tasks to focus on, strategic planning clearly takes a lot of work!

Strategic intent “also encompasses an active management process that includes: focusing the organization’s attention on the essence of winning; motivating people by communicating the value of the target; leaving room for individual and team contributions; sustaining enthusiasm by providing new operational definitions as circumstances change; and using intent consistently to guide resource allocations” (1989). In short, it’s about winning. Anyone who knows anything about team sports knows that most are all about hard work and strategy. Regardless of how big, fast, or strong you are, if there is not a central goal all members are willing to work together to achieve, the team will not win.

Great Chaos Precedes Great Change

Change is uncomfortable. Many people like things the way they are and are hesitant to quickly buy into the idea that we need to start doing our jobs differently to accommodate to shifting contexts. However, change is inevitable and, if navigated gracefully, can result in tremendous progress. Organizations are inherently groups, and in groups there are stages of change. Tuckman’s model (Tuckman, B., 1963) proposes the following stages (and these are fluid): forming, storming, norming, and performing. Roll with the punches and remember that often great chaos precedes great change.

For Profit or Purpose?

Nonprofit organizations are led by a vision. To Write Love on Her Arms, Inc.’s mission statement is “presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.” Their mission leads their movement. At the core of their different programs, fundraising campaigns, and merchandise sales, they must adhere to that stated purpose. Unlike the business sector, their goal is not solely to make a profit. They are directed by a group of diverse individuals that make up a board of directors. Nonprofits depend on their boards to navigate where they’re going and how they get there.