The article is much appreciated and Collaboration is a topic which needs to be addressed at so many levels. It is about opening up genuine dialogue for sincere win win solutions and incredible new unions for sustainable results. Thank you
Wonderful research and a really helpful model and set of insights. Thank you! The framework for organizing and characterizing collaborations in terms of structure is a useful approach but I wonder to what extent we could also think of collaborations in terms of assets shared and value created (that would not exist absent of the collaboration). It seems that the main driver for collaborations is efficiency (ability to meet greater need with fewer resources) but it would be interesting to think about collaborations in terms of effectiveness as well (ability to move the needle on mission). Obviously both are related but the former is perhaps a more defensive strategy and the latter more of an offensive strategy. The article also noted that there is a gap between the desire to collaborate and ability to do so (particularly in terms of the shared function and merger forms of collaboration). Part of this may be that nonprofits lack the models and guidelines needed think about and implement collaborations and partly this may be due to the difficulty of proactively identifying partners (also noted in the article). It seems to me that you need to have clarity on two things in order to identify the right partners for collaboration:
1. Self-knowledge (Brand Identity that answers the questions “who you are, what you do and why it’s important”)
2. Clarity of purpose (what you are trying to achieve and how you fit into the overall theory of change).
We address both of these under the concept of Brand Affinity (see The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector, SSIR Spring 2012).
We are a team of researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School exploring innovative forms of collaboration in the nonprofit sector. We are interested in how organizations share assets and create value through collaboration (See James Austin’s latest book) and we welcome your thoughts and suggestions in terms of organizations to include in our study.
COMMENTS
BY Maurizio Mrselli
ON January 15, 2015 07:13 AM
The article is much appreciated and Collaboration is a topic which needs to be addressed at so many levels. It is about opening up genuine dialogue for sincere win win solutions and incredible new unions for sustainable results. Thank you
BY Nathalie Laidler Kylander
ON February 11, 2015 05:30 AM
Wonderful research and a really helpful model and set of insights. Thank you! The framework for organizing and characterizing collaborations in terms of structure is a useful approach but I wonder to what extent we could also think of collaborations in terms of assets shared and value created (that would not exist absent of the collaboration). It seems that the main driver for collaborations is efficiency (ability to meet greater need with fewer resources) but it would be interesting to think about collaborations in terms of effectiveness as well (ability to move the needle on mission). Obviously both are related but the former is perhaps a more defensive strategy and the latter more of an offensive strategy. The article also noted that there is a gap between the desire to collaborate and ability to do so (particularly in terms of the shared function and merger forms of collaboration). Part of this may be that nonprofits lack the models and guidelines needed think about and implement collaborations and partly this may be due to the difficulty of proactively identifying partners (also noted in the article). It seems to me that you need to have clarity on two things in order to identify the right partners for collaboration:
1. Self-knowledge (Brand Identity that answers the questions “who you are, what you do and why it’s important”)
2. Clarity of purpose (what you are trying to achieve and how you fit into the overall theory of change).
We address both of these under the concept of Brand Affinity (see The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector, SSIR Spring 2012).
We are a team of researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School exploring innovative forms of collaboration in the nonprofit sector. We are interested in how organizations share assets and create value through collaboration (See James Austin’s latest book) and we welcome your thoughts and suggestions in terms of organizations to include in our study.