Collaboration Among Non-Profits and Community Partners
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The interactions among organizations take many forms. From informal information sharing to formal agreements to collaborate to solve societal problems, the reasons for doing so are myriad. From a governance perspective, many societal problems are deemed “wicked” problems; they are ill defined and are never solvable, but can be continually resolved (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 160). Wicked problems have no “clarifying traits” and include many policy-oriented issues such as education, environmental issues, and planning (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 160). Collaboration has been proffered as one type of interaction that can be utilized to solve these wicked problems. Non-profits play a role in these interactions in an effort to solve particular sets of problems within their realm as well. In many instances governments as well as citizen-based organizations work alongside non-profits. It is these interactions among non-profits and other institutions within communities that this research is interested in.
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Collaboration Among Non-Profits and Community Partners
- 1. Collaboration Among Non- Profits and Community Partners Wesley Ross FOUN 814 Old Dominion University April 22, 2013
- 2. Purpose “Girl Scouting Builds Girls of Courage, Confidence, and Character Who Make the World a Better Place.” – Girl Scout Mission • What is Collaboration? • Are the relationships between GSCCC and Community Partners Collaboration? • Why Collaborate? • How Can Non-Profits Improve These Relationships?
- 3. Literature • …two heads are better than one (Gray, 1989, p. 5) • A continuum of increased interaction (McNamara, 2012, p. 391) No Interaction Cooperation Coordination Collaboration Integration
- 4. Approach Participatory Action Research Unobtrusive Observation Interviews Research as a Change Agent (Hays and Singh, 2012, p. 63)
- 6. ResultsElement Cooperation Coordination Collaboration Design Work within existing organizational structures Centralized control through hierarchical structures Shared power arrangements Formality of the Agreement Informal agreement Formalized agreements Informal and formal agreements Organizational Autonomy Fully autonomous; policies to govern the collective arrangements are not developed Semi-autonomous; policies to govern the collective arrangement may be developed by higher authorities Not autonomous; policies to govern the collective arrangement are developed jointly by participants Key Personnel Implementation of the partnership occurs at the lowest levels; leaders are not involved Implementation of the partnership is based on higher authority; a boundary spanner may be used to foster linkages Implementation of the partnership is based on the participants; a convener may help bring participants together Information Sharing Basic information shared through informal channels Information is exchanged through more formal channels Open and frequent communications through formal and informal channels Decision Making Independent decision making Centralized decision making Participative decision making Resolution of Turf Issues Conflicts avoided through independence A neutral facilitator may help resolve conflicts Participants work together to resolve conflicts Resource Allocation Information is exchanged Physical and nonphysical resources are exchanged to achieve individual goals Physical and nonphysical resources are pooled in support of collective goals Systems Thinking System integration does not occur System integration may occur to better achieve individual goals System integration does occur to better achieve collective goals Trust Trust relationships are not required but may develop Leaders work closely to create relationship based on trust Trust between participants is needed to sustain relationships
- 7. Results “mmm…When different parties bring different things to the table and they…can be mutually beneficial to everyone (001)” “Equal partnership…people coming together to make one program successful (002)”
- 8. Results
- 9. Results Formality of Agreement when I’m working with the group, with a large scale event, it takes more of their higher ups to OK the dates, OK the pricing, things like that (001) yes I think we are, we are actually considered as a community partner (when asked about providing formal agreements) (002) Yes, (when asked about providing a formal agreement to work) (001)
- 10. Results Key Personnel once we’re at the contract portion, if they’re gonna offer an event, it requires a contract and some more things, then we go to the director position, um, just make sure they’re all on board (001) We work at all levels, depending on who is the person connecting with them (002)
- 11. Results Resource Allocation yeah, we’ve completely evolved since I started here. When I first started here we provided everything, they just gave us the space and a couple of teachers here and there, instructors. Now, they do almost everything and I sometimes don’t even go, um, to events (001) we will provide patches; we provide registration, the roster (001) I will provide myself or Donna to do check in (001) So we’ve um, passed different resources back and forth between, um…human resources, by people, um, taking reservations to, um, knowledge, who, who’s passing on the knowledge to, um, who we’re presenting to (002)
- 12. Results Trust Um…a lot, if I’m not going to be there. Um, I have to trust that they’re gonna meet ratios (001) Yeah, trust is a good thing, because you’re relying on each other to provide your resources that you need, because, especially like an expertise that somebody may have that the other one doesn’t. You’re relying on that person to provide that knowledge for them, or those resources for them and if that’s not there, that means that person is not putting it into their effort that we need to make it successful (002)
- 13. Results they don’t really see where they fit, when you look at a badge and you have five requirements, they can say, “I can do this, I can do number two and number four.” (001) I think the challenge right now is with the new badge program that they’re offering there’s not as many that tie in with our mission at Nauticus, um, as they used to be (002)
- 14. So What?
- 15. Contact Wesley Ross PhD Student Old Dominion University pross010@odu.edu
Editor's Notes
- The interactions among organizations take many forms. From informal information sharing to formal agreements to collaborate to solve societal problems, the reasons for doing so are myriad. From a governance perspective, many societal problems are deemed “wicked” problems; they are ill defined and are never solvable, but can be continually resolved (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 160). Wicked problems have no “clarifying traits” and include many policy-oriented issues such as education, environmental issues, and planning (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 160). Collaboration has been proffered as one type of interaction that can be utilized to solve these wicked problems. Non-profits play a role in these interactions in an effort to solve particular sets of problems within their realm as well. In many instances governments as well as citizen-based organizations work alongside non-profits. It is these interactions among non-profits and other institutions within communities that this research is interested in.
- In this research, I took an exploratory approach to determining exactly what kinds of interactions exist between the Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast and other organizations in the community that it interacts with in some way, otherwise known as community partners. One of the goals of this research is to define what collaboration is based on the literature as well as data collection activities. A second goal is to determine some potential avenues for improving these relationships in order to better carry out the mission of the Girl Scout Council.
- Collaboration as an area of research is a relatively young field. Barbara Gray established the seminal work in the field in 1989. There is significant work in the field now, however the focus on non-profits and their community partners yields significantly less results. This makes research into this subfield viable for exploration. I base my exploratory work on Madeleine McNamara’s 2012 framework, which is represented here graphically Public, private, non-profit, citizen-centric, no matter the entity, interaction tends to occur along this continuum. It is not considered linear however, despite the depiction here.
- I chose to approach this exploratory research from the PAR tradition. According to Hays and Singh, this approach relies upon the power of research as a change agent. Participants and I as the researcher share power and we work together in planning the research and implementing findings. Ultimately, I wish to work collaboratively with my co-workers and their counterparts in the community to improve the interactions we have together. In a time of reduced resources due to economic conditions, reaching the goals of the Council increasingly require the pooling of resources with organizations that have similar missions to ours. It really comes down to improving the lives of young women in our community by providing them a safe environment, educational and leadership opportunities and life skills to aid in managing social issues such as relational aggression. This research utilized two forms of data collection – unobtrusive observation and interviews.
- The initial research includes two interviews and one unobtrusive observation. The first interviewee is a manager at the Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast who has been with the Council for about 12 years. She works directly with Community Partners on a daily basis. This makes her knowledge and expertise valuable to the research. The second interviewee is a manager at the Nauticus, one of the community partners that works directly with the Council on programs and events. She too has been an employee with her organization for a very long time, 16 years. Since her hiring, she has worked directly with the Council, again making her knowledge of interactions with the Council very valuable. The unobtrusive observation took place at NSU and was a planning session for an event that both organizations were working on together.
- I apologize for this slide but in order to understand the significance of the results, we must understand the differentiation that McNamara uses in her typology. I won’t go through each one but you can get a sense of the delineation between the types of interactions. Generally cooperation is less interactive, more autonomous and informal, where as collaboration is more integrated, formal, more of a partnership of equals.
- - I asked the question, what does the word collaboration mean to you, actually near the end of the interviews and the responses I got were interesting. The first interviewee came closest to the research literature on what collaboration means. The second interviewee spoke in terms of single events, which is contrary to collaboration, according to the literature. Generally collaboration is an ongoing, iterative process, long-term in nature. Based on McNamara, I would consider the second response to be more coordination or even cooperation.
- Of the 10 elements of interaction described by McNamara, the interviewees both touched on 6. Out of those 6 elements 4 showed agreement between the two interviewees. Finally, 3 of the 4 elements were bolstered by data collected in the unobtrusive observation.
- - In each instance, there is a formal agreement between our council and the community partner. It is an actual document or contract to work together. Both interviewees were aware that these agreements existed between them.
- While there was agreement on collaboration for key personnel, there was substantial additional information that each interviewee provided which lends more to cooperation or coordination. Critically, much of the work between the Council and the community partner occurs at lower levels within the organization – typically manager level. McNamara would consider this to be coordination at best.
- The area of resource allocation really begins to show the collaborative nature of the arrangement. Resources - from time, knowledge, people and money are shared among both groups to make an event or program successful. Both interviewees were in agreement with resource sharing in relation to collaboration.
- Trust was another strongly correlated element for collaboration. Both interviewees provided a lot of information regarding trust. Interviewee 1 provided vivid examples of when the trust relationship broke down and the consequences of the loss of trust. The organizations stopped interacting for a time until that trust rift was repaired. This to me was the strongest element regarding collaboration based on the data collected. Trust builds social capital, which is a critical ingredient to successful collaboration.
- - One more thing not in the matrix but in the literature that impact the collaborative relationship came out in the interviews as well. - That was mission misalignment. If the organizations are not working toward common goals or outcomes, there is generally a breakdown in the collaborative.
- So what’s the takeaway here? There are clearly some aspects of collaboration occurring. However, there is a significant lack of critical components such as organizational design that would more fully integrate all of these partners. They still work structurally within their own organizations for much of this work. This research highlights some areas that we as a council could work on to improve these relationships and really collaborate. But even the literature still is not in full agreement on what collaboration is or, more importantly what the critical mass is on the elements that must be in place to call something “collaboration” – McNamara provides 10, but are 3 or 4 of those sufficient? Do some elements get more weight than others? These are great research questions for future study.