For an industry that works for the common good, the nonprofit world can be unkind. There’s the elbow thrown while jockeying for a donor’s attention. The disparaging remark about a group seen as a rival. And the reality that the humble and nice aren’t always rewarded in the funding scramble. Collaboration between nonprofits, especially across differences, can be difficult for numerous reasons.

All that seems forgotten as 50 or so nonprofit leaders gather here for a collaboration between nonprofits at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, which sits on a hilltop bathed this evening in the setting sun’s glow. They are part of a long-standing pact in which each has pledged to help the others advance their organizations. The next day, in an exercise akin to a barn-raising, a few will present a dream project and seek help — advice, connections, partnerships, money.

“It’s mutual aid on steroids,” says Eric Liu, CEO of Citizen University, the event’s organizer.

The gathering is the 41st meeting of the National Civic Collaboratory, which began more than a decade ago to bring together leaders of groups for a collaboration between nonprofits across different missions and ideologies. Offshoot pilots have taken root in a handful of cities, among them Atlanta, Chicago, Lexington, Ky., and Wichita, Kan., as well as for all of Arizona. Anyone could do this, Liu says.

The group this night convenes for a welcome reception and dinner in the museum’s three-story, glass-walled pavilion, where Reagan’s Air Force One is suspended from the ceiling. Among those attending are a nationally renowned documentary filmmaker and a New Orleans librarian. A MacArthur “genius” grant scholar and a Marine veteran of Iraq. An executive at the conservative Hoover Institution and a founder of the ultra-liberal MoveOn.org.

The coasts and liberal progressivism are well represented within the collaboration between nonprofits, but a scattering of people come from conservative quadrants as well as flyover country — Arizona, Kentucky, Michigan, Oklahoma. In years past, the roster has included Tea Party members and Black Lives Matter leaders.

Each has responded to a simple invitation, Liu says: “Let’s build something together. And let’s build someone up together.”

Read the full article about nonprofit collaboration by Drew Lindsay at Chronicle of Philanthropy.