At the turn of the century, just as the Internet was becoming mainstream in the United States, five legal services organizations in New York came together to make the law more accessible to New Yorkers. These five collaborators were the City Bar Justice Center, the Legal Aid Society, Legal Services NYC, Pro Bono Net, and Volunteers of Legal Services. Together, they recognized how low-income and other vulnerable New Yorkers often

In the nonprofit world, where resources are often shared, limited, and sometimes even restrictive, one phrase is common in boardrooms and project meetings: let’s get creative. However, creativity sometimes seems to be a gift that some people have, and others don’t. The phrase “let’s get creative” never really answers how to get creative and practice it for what it is: a valuable skill in every workplace.  At NNSI, many of

View the Resource By Anne-Marie Boyer, Katherine R. Cooper, Shaun M. Dougherty, Rong Wang, Michelle Shumate Collaborative governance research examines the role of individuals, organizations, and partnerships within a community to understand why particular interorganizational networks emerge. We take a different tact, arguing that communities adopt collaborative governance models based upon exposure to the models and the individual and organizational resources in a community. We conducted a web-based national-level scan

The Summit Education Initiative (SEI) began in 1996, when leaders of the community surrounding Akron, Ohio, came together to form the original framework of the network.  In 2006, around 50 community leaders met again to discuss the direction of SEI and its role in the community.  Since then, SEI has been leading the community’s commitment to supporting the success of children in Summit County.  Through intervention that helps to empower

The Communities That Care Coalition (CTC) was founded in 2002 in Franklin County, Massachusetts, in response to strong community concern for youth substance use, which had surpassed national averages. The initiative began with funding from Channing Bete, a publishing company in South Deerfield that initially supported the Communities That CareTM model, and a local business located in Greenfield matched their financing. Currently, much of their funding comes from federal, state

View the Resource By Sophia Fu, Katherine R. Cooper, Michelle Shumate Although nonprofit collaboration is commonplace, recent research suggests that faith-based organizations (FBOs) are less likely to collaborate than other nonprofits. This study builds on prior FBO, collaboration, and nonprofit capacity research to examine the influence of religiosity and operational capacity on FBOs’ within- and cross-sector partnerships. Findings from a survey with 197 FBOs across the United States reveal a