October 3, 2002 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Nimble Collaboration: Fine-Tuning Your Collaboration for Lasting Success
by Karen Ray
Collaboration is a must for many organizations seeking to make the most of limited resources — be they money, technology, or time. But cooperation among charities may buckle under the burdens of “frequent, irritating meetings, arduous task completion, and snail-paced decisions,” writes Karen Ray, president of a St. Paul consulting firm.
This manual offers tips for making a partnership more effective, whether it’s a museum working with a government unit to promote arts, or a foundation financing a collaboration of several nonprofit organizations.
The first part of the book focuses on relationships between collaborating organizations, and describes how to build trust, reinforce roles, and avoid turf issues and hidden agendas. Tips include establishing a well-planned communication strategy in which reports are kept short; creating e-mail lists for those who want daily progress updates; and distributing a summary of important decisions and actions to key players each week. This section also gives guidelines for forming clearly defined goals and tips for making the collaboration resilient.
The second section covers the two most common types of collaborations — those created to integrate services and those that deal with a broad, complex problem or challenge, such as economic revitalization. Chapters walk the reader through real-life collaborations in each category, describing their structures and offering suggestions for making them run more smoothly.
Publisher: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, 919 Lafond Avenue, St. Paul, Minn. 55104-2108; (651) 659-6024 or (800) 274-6024; fax (651) 642-2061; books@wilder.org; http://www.wilder.org; 120 pages; $25; I.S.B.N. 0-940069-28-8.
