Giving Compass' Take:

• Valerie F. Leonard, writing for GuideStar Blog, lists the best practices for successful nonprofit collaboration. 

• One piece of advice from Leonard: Funding proposals shouldn't be the only factor for collaboration. 

• Read more about why nonprofits must embrace collaboration. 

It seems like everybody is talking about how important is for organizations to work together. Foundations, who are seeing a growing demand for their resources but want to see a greater impact for their donations, encourage organizations to work collaboratively around key issue areas, geography, and target groups.

Elected officials like to see stakeholders come together to tackle problems that plague the community. After all, “it takes a village to raise a child,” and probably several villages to save the world. Organizations work collaboratively to share the workload; strengthen organizational capacity; share lessons learned; and create synergies around new and existing programs.

Like marriage, collaborations are not to be entered into unadvisedly. For every successful collaboration of which I’ve been a part, I can name several more that failed for one reason or another. Through the good, the bad, and the ugly, I have learned valuable lessons, and I’d like to share some of them with you.

  • Understand your self-interests.  
  • Understand your worth. 
  • Understand the self-interests, value, and motivations of everyone else you’re considering adding to your team. 
  • Don’t let funding proposals be the only factor that determines the terms and scope of your collaboration. 
  • Vet everyone with whom you want to collaborate, including people that you know and have worked with before. 
  • Determine the legal structure of your collaboration. 
  • Have an exit strategy. 
  • Establish ground rules. 

 Read the full article about nonprofit collaboration by Valerie F. Leonard at GuideStar Blog.