By Michelle Shumate
Sustained collaboration can be a strategic option for social impact leaders seeking greater efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability. However, every social impact leader has also experienced ineffective collaborations. These collaborations never advance past the talking phase or lack the resources necessary to succeed. Sometimes, conflict or poor management undermines the goals of the collaboration.
Throughout this research, the Sustained Collaboration Network argues that there are critical lessons that social impact leaders (and the consultants that support them) can learn from how collaborations with documented positive outcomes differ from those without them. Based on a comparative case analysis of 14 collaborations with documented positive outcomes and 6 without them, the research highlights key lessons in collaboration design and management.