October 6, 2013 | Read Time: 6 minutes
Today, the nonprofit world is abuzz about collaboration as organizations and communities attempt to build networks, work together to take action, or catalyze social movements.
But collaboration is often much tougher than it looks: While many nonprofits have succeeded, too often attempts by organizations to join forces result in false starts, damaged relationships, and little to no progress on the issues.
The problem: Many of the standard principles for managing strong nonprofit organizations can actually inhibit successful collaborations.
In fact, one bottleneck that is often overlooked is the critical importance of relationships among people and organizations, which take time and patience to develop. All too often, the best strategies fail because power imbalances, competition, mistrust, and ego get in the way.
But some pioneering charities and grant makers that seek to multiply their impact are achieving better results by adopting a collaborative approach. Here’s how they’re doing it:
Building trust. Collaborations are most successful when participants have the time and space to build the relationships and trust needed to share control with others.
When Yousry Makar, director of Habitat for Humanity Egypt, laid out an ambitious 25-year plan that sought to serve 10 percent of the country’s 20 million poor residents, he recognized that his organization had money and program expertise but lacked the local knowledge, staffing, and resources to propel this work forward.
Mr. Makar and his organization went from building 30 houses a year to building 2,000 by weaving a network of local community-development organizations and yielding control of program operations to them.
In addition to a tremendous increase in the construction of homes, Habit for Humanity Egypt achieved among the highest housing loan-repayment rates of any country in which Habitat operates by working in that way. People who had taken out housing loans held each other accountable for repayment to a far greater degree than Habitat ever could.
Grant makers can help build a foundation of trust by allowing relationships and collaborations to grow organically, rather than forcing grantees to work together, and providing significant resources, such as unrestricted support, so nonprofits have the organizational slack they need to invest in building relationships.
Practicing humility. Nonprofit leaders are used to promoting their program models, building their brands, and striving to become recognized as leaders in their field—and many of their boards support this vision. Yet the individuals and charities that are most effective at collaborating are those that are able to work alongside their peers as equals, are willing to take a back seat when someone else is in a better position to lead, and understand that attracting attention to the issues is more important than getting recognition for the individual organization.
At the Nature Conservancy, part of working with humility means joining with sometimes unexpected partners, such as corporations, in finding solutions, rather than shutting them out.
“Some of the best learning comes from working with people you don’t share goals with,” said Mark Burget, executive vice president. “This takes us into uncomfortable terrain, but it opens up new opportunities. Maybe there is room to collaborate with people who we once thought of as ‘doing bad.’”
In January 2011, the Nature Conservancy announced a breakthrough collaboration with the Dow Chemical Company.
Over the course of five years, scientists from the Nature Conservancy and Dow will work together at three pilot sites to validate and test ways to make more sustainable business decisions at Dow. By working together, Dow and the Conservancy can use what they are learning to transfer knowledge globally and influence more companies to make more environmentally sound decisions.
This collaboration is an example of how companies and organizations can work together to make change happen and, in this case, increase investments in protecting the planet’s natural systems and the services they provide.
Charity leaders and grant makers who want to encourage greater humility across the nonprofit world must first look critically at their own attitudes and practices. They should ask themselves: To what extent does our organization seek to understand the perspective of others in our community and learn from them? How open are we about sharing our resources and knowledge, including lessons learned from missteps?
Using mission as a motivator. In many cases, a nonprofit can’t create widespread, lasting change all by itself. Collaborations succeed when participants work to achieve a unified goal rather then each focusing on its own group’s mission. But joining forces can be tough for nonprofits that are, in many ways, competing for the same funds.
With an ambitious goal to give all children access to playgrounds, the leaders of KaBoom realize that their success depends on the success of other organizations committed to the same cause. Therefore, it works to help strengthen like-minded groups.
For example, KaBoom has shared resources with partners and allies—in one case redirecting a potential donor to another charity that was a better match, and in another case, providing a grant to keep an organization afloat after it lost a major donor.
The decision to share resources in this way is not purely altruistic; KaBoom recognizes that the loss of one ally is a loss to the network as a whole, and a stronger network means greater results. “Convince complementary organizations to grow with you,” said Darell Hammond, the charity’s CEO. “You need more boats in the fleet, not to be the biggest boat in the fleet.”
Donors can help nonprofits work this way by covering the administrative costs or infrastructure for collaborations to thrive, connecting nonprofits that are working on the same issues, and making long-term investments in the cause rather than in just a single organization.
Fostering strong relationships. For many nonprofits and grant makers, taking pains to build relationships and getting comfortable with ceding control to the group will take time and require some significant shifts. But staff members, board leaders, and grant makers can have a tremendous influence over how easily a nonprofit will be able to make these shifts.
Leaders and donors who want to see the nonprofits they care about engage effectively in collaboration can start by reflecting on whether they are creating the conditions that support success.
They can start by asking these questions: To what extent are we encouraging a culture of collaboration that is grounded in strong relationships? What practices or policies might be working against this goal? What changes can we make to better support the organizations we care about?
The work is hard, but the payoff of effective collaboration can be tremendous. As one nonprofit leader put it: “Mastering collaboration is the most important opportunity to close the gap between achieving pretty good performance and realizing full potential.”
Lori Bartczak is director of programs at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. Jane Wei-Skillern is adjunct associate professor, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She is a co-author of “Cracking the Network Code: Four Principles for Grantmakers,” published by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.
