In the for profit business world, companies often form partnerships and collaborate in order to reduce their costs and improve their profit margins. While NFPs have a different structure and purpose than a for-profit organisation, and even though it might take many years before an NFP would realise any savings in its costs, collaboration is an effective tool for NFPs when it is used to provide greater services and make it easier to achieve its mission and goals in its service community.

Creating an effective partnership that benefits all stakeholders and parties involved takes more than just the simple commitment to cooperate and collaborate with one another.  Consider these tips to make it easier for your NFP to successfully enter formal collaboration agreements with other parties.

Leadership is Key

The foundation of any successful collaboration is built on solid relationships of trust and mutual respect. This will require effective leadership from all parties involved.  Effective leaders are able to facilitate open and direct communication and bring together and connect people and resources to the benefit of all organisations involved, as well as the community.

Roles, Responsibilities and Objectives Should Be Communicated Clearly and in Writing

Each party should have a clear understanding of what it has to offer the collaboration, and what it hopes to receive, and achieve, in return.  Each party should have a clear understanding of what resources it will contribute, what resources it will receive, and how these contributions will benefit each organisation.

Clearly communicating what is expected of each member, and how each member will benefit from the collaboration will increase transparency and reduce the potential for any conflicts.

Ideally, the roles, responsibilities and objectives for each organisation in the collaboration should be communicated clearly and in writing, with all parties receiving a copy of the agreement. All parties should also agree in advance on a structure to handle any potential conflicts in the use of resources that have been committed to the collaboration in order to reduce the potential for conflict and increase the chances of success for the collaboration.

Seek Professional Guidance throughout the Process

When two or more parties collaborate with one another, both seek the opportunity to reduce their costs by reducing the number of duplicate services that they offer. This allows them to improve quality as they are each able to focus on those service areas that they do well, and, since duplicate services are reduced, each are then able to expand and offer additional services and other benefits to their community and its stakeholders.

Despite the best efforts and intentions of everyone involved in the process, it can be difficult to marshal the resources of all of the entities involved and put them towards their best purpose. For this reason it can be very beneficial for all parties to seek professional consultations and guidance with others who have successfully been through the process themselves and that can offer valuable suggestions and feedback for how to make the transition from competition to cooperation easier and faster.

NFPs may find it helpful to form an advisory board comprised of members with backgrounds in  legal matters, prior experience with mergers, partnerships and collaborations, as well as leadership and management backgrounds, to advise them throughout the process of forming the collaboration and partnership to increase the chances for successful collaboration.

If your NFP has been considering collaboration or other partnership as a means to accomplish more in its service community, Volunteering Australia also has a report that provides helpful tips and advice on how NFPs can approach corporations for potential sponsorship and collaboration.

As needs in our communities continue to grow, and the competition for resources increases, the NFP sector should also see an increase in the need for partnerships and mergers as well as a greater focus on cooperation and collaboration among third parties. Opportunities for everyone can only increase as NFPs add collaboration to their tool kits and place the focus of collaboration on expanding services and benefits to the community.