By Michelle Shumate
In philanthropy and social impact, a complex tapestry of challenges often weaves itself into the fabric of well-intentioned efforts. Foundations and grantmaking organizations wrestle with questions of nonprofit efficiency, impact, and sustainability, seeking the elusive formula for lasting change. Sustained collaborations are a potential solution to many common funder dilemmas. These partnerships have the potential to ensure efficiency, strategic transformation, growth, innovation, and sustainability.
This report chronicles how 14 collaborations with documented positive outcomes differ from 6 collaborations without them. This report describes three types of sustained collaborations:
- Integrated organizations describe a merging of all or part of two or more organizations. Common types include asset transfers, change of control, and statutory mergers.
- Shared program or service collaborations are undertaken by autonomous organizations. Shared program collaborations pool resources to create a project, program, or service that produces a joint outcome. In shared service collaborations, organizations coordinate to address a common organizational need more efficiently or effectively than they could on their own. They may pool certain organizational functions or share space.
- Alliances and networks refer to groups of three or more organizations working together to achieve a common goal. These organizations balance partnerships with other groups and the organizational autonomy necessary to fulfill their independent missions.
This report focuses on the interaction between funding initiatives and the collaborations they support. The first part of this report details the funding policies and grantmaker practices that catalyze sustained nonprofit collaborations. The second part of this report focuses on proposal evaluation guidelines for different types of sustained collaborations.