Giving Compass' Take:

• TCC Group lists seven core principles that it believes are essential to effective, outcomes-driven collaboration, from building social currency to addressing power imbalances.

• How many of these principles are other organizations incorporating into their own collaboration processes? Which ones might be the most challenging to implement?

• Here's why we need more collaboration and fewer mergers in the nonprofit world for greater impact.

At TCC Group, we work to make sustainable change and make the world a better place. We do this work because we are committed to the value of the social sector and its role in solving complex social problems. We are not in the business of short-term solutions, but seek to help organizations deliver more impact, in a more lasting manner. Our opportunity to have an impact rests in our ability to support, build, and work in partnership with our clients, our colleagues in the field, and with each other.

As a member of the Collaboration Champions — a group of leading organizations invested in both value-driven and outcomes-driven collaboration — we’re pleased to share seven core principles that embody our values at TCC, and reflect those of our peers.

  1. Each collaboration should aim to achieve a clear social good. Collaboration is not self-justifying.
  2. How we collaborate is as important as the goals we seek to accomplish. While it is important to have a goal, considerate and values-driven process matters in collaboration. The ends do not justify the means.
  3. The social currency, trust and relationships that evolve as part of a collaboration are just as important as — and play a critical role in contributing to — the programmatic outcomes a collaboration seeks to achieve.
  4. Collaborations should seek to elevate voices from the affected individuals/communities and provide space for their leadership.
  5. Participants in collaborations should acknowledge power differentials and prioritize an active approach to dealing with them.
  6. Collaboration carries explicit and implicit costs. The principle of equity should guide resource allocations, including, where appropriate, compensating for participation.
  7. Reflection and learning are deliberate acts to ensure that a collaborative is living its values and best serving the membership, the community, and the stated goal.

We hope these principles will be helpful in a range of ways, from checking for values alignment with potential partners to providing considerations for the design of a collaboration. We ask grantmakers to consider these principles as a guide to how they approach collaboration, and we invite other practitioners in collaboration to sign on with us to help ensure that value-driven collaboration is not subordinated to, but is held jointly with, outcomes-driven collaboration.

Read the full article about a guide to philanthropic collaboration at TCC Group.