The Power of Possibility: Exploring Greater Impact through Strategic Partnerships

There are powerful examples of collaborations across the social sector. Transformational partnerships that enable organizations to expand their impact through collective action. Ways of working together that enable organizations to share expertise, coordinate efforts, expand resources, and achieve scale. Creative solutions that enable individual organizations to move past the boundaries of their current capacity and build new possibilities.

The Power of Possibility campaign provides new resources and tools to help guide a nonprofit's board discussion about the possibility of strategic alliances and restructuring. It walks leaders through key questions for consideration, whether in a particular moment of inflection or a broader conversation about the strategic benefit of partnership. And it connects nonprofit leaders with additional resources and tools that can be helpful as exploration continues. The Power of Possibility campaign also provides a platform to stimulate and support an ongoing conversation about the potential for strategic alliances and restructuring, both individually within organizations and as a broad strategy for sector-wide impact.

These partnerships can take many forms. Some are informal and temporary, enabling groups to come together for a specific short-term purpose. Others are long-term and durable – strategies such as joint programming, administrative consolidation, and mergers. It’s these types of strategic partnerships – what we refer to as strategic alliances and restructuring – that are the focus of this initiative.

The Power of Possibility campaign is a joint effort by: BoardSource, The Bridgespan Group, La Piana Consulting, The Lodestar Foundation, Lyda Hill, MAP for Nonprofits, and The Patterson Foundation, with additional support from The Trustees’ Philanthropy Fund of Fidelity Charitable and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.