Related Resources >> Collaborative Working

Prepare Your Nonprofit to Meet the Collaboration Challenge
MMM aims to publish a guide to successful collaboration in 2010, but until we do here are some useful worksheets to help you on your way.

Nonprofit Collaboration in Boston
This benchmark report identifies eight major findings about nonprofit/nonprofit collaboration. The first four findings relate to the structure and process of collaboration; the last four are about the technical assistance needed for collaborations to be successful.

Real Collaboration and Beyond Collaboration are two classic texts on what the Americans rather terrifyingly call ’strategic restructuring’ by the famous La Piana Associates who specialise in this subject.

The Urge to Merge
Andrew Taylor pulls together some important points about this topical issue including this recent comment from Non-Profit Finance Funds’ Clara Miller:

[Organizational] culture eats strategy for breakfast. To the outside eye, it may look perfect to have X and Y merge, but in fact internally there are huge cultural differences that will make it hard. At arts organizations, in particular, we celebrate our individual artistic visions, and that’s manifest in many, many organizations. I think working together, thinking about the platform differently, pulling out all the unnecessary expense from your platform…those are the things to be looking for, those expense savings, not necessarily the mash-up of two very strong artistic personalities.

Before You Say “I Do” : Why nonprofits should be wary of merging
Denise Gammal explains why money is not the right reason to merge but mission may be.

Nonprofit Collaboration & Mergers: Finding the Right Fit
This study identifies the key characteristics of successful partnerships and some useful recommendations from the front line including ensuring that Funders do not drive the process.

Merging Administrative Functions
This arts blog entry draws attention to a lawyers blog that has been running a series in this. On example, the Chattanooga Museums Collaboration achieved things you might expect – cutting costs, leveraging their purchasing power, improving productivity and increasing unearned income through joint fund raising activities. But in addition, the partnership also made them more competitive in the larger business landscape.

Mergers and Strategic Alliances
This short article by WolfBrown’s Joe Kluger and Thomas Wolf summarises some of the common fears nonprofit organisations about mergers and strategic alliances and describes a series of steps to overcome them.

Four Californian Cities Team Up in Nationally Unprecedented Arts Collaboration
This four-city collaboration is believed to be the first of its kind in the US and is designed to serve as a model of forward-thinking, economically and socially viable partnerships that put the arts forward as a proven catalyst for economic development, quality of life and community sustainability. The East Bay Cultural Corridor will foster relationships between the diverse arts communities of each city, leverage new audiences and resources for the arts, increase the visibility, accessibility and sustainability of arts communities, leverage new resources for each partner city and benefit local businesses through partnerships with the arts.