Author: E. Rey Garcia, MPA, Candidate Doctorate of Computer Science Enterprise Information Systems, Colorado Technical University.

1. E. Rey Garcia, MPA, Candidate DCS-EIS
Colorado Technical University
6/22/2017
Effective Collaboration:
Across Public, Nonprofit, and Private Sectors

2. COLLABORATION: ACROSS PUBLIC, NONPROFIT, AND PRIVATE SECTORS 1
Intentionally Left Blank

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Effective Collaboration:
Across Public, Nonprofit, and Private Sectors
Epifanio Rey Garcia, MPA, Candidate DCS-EIS
Colorado Technical University (CTU)
June 22, 2017
Author Note
This essay is for Unit 2, Individual Project on conducting doctoral research,
taught by Dr. Rick Livingood.
Revision 2.1

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Effective Collaboration: Across Public, Nonprofit, and Private Sectors
What do public, nonprofit, and private sectors have in common? They all provide
services to the community. How they provide these services may vary according to dimension,
rationale, contracting, partnerships, network governance, analyzation of options, the type of
model being used, leadership, capacity, and responsible forecasting for the future.
Public sectors are limited on budget and must hold themselves accountable to the
community. Nonprofits provide social services to the community, and must also be held
accountable in order to achieve their mission. Private sectors are more concerned about profit.
However, they have a social responsibility to the community and to those they do business with
to provide quality, reputable services if they wish to stay in business.
Public managers face many societal, governmental, and economic challenges. Citizens
expect the delivery of services, while the government lacks resources, funding, and goes on
being underappreciated. Governments are left with the task of leveraging public funds, expertise,
and risk management with other sectors in order to effectively deliver public information.
Nonprofit managers seek to promote and expand their mission statement in the area of interest.
Finally, the private sector manager seeks to cap on profit and the promotion of the organization,
while seeking to earn the community’s business.
Due to the lack of multi-level expertise, capacity, and funding, governments are left to
turn to hierarchical structures in the nonprofit and private sectors to assist with the workflow of
the government and help identify the emerging trends and implementation of policies and
procedures.

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Public managers are faced with the task of carrying on their duties and responsibilities to
the citizens during a time when the government is viewed as dysfunctional. These challenges
stem from the ever-changing markets, politics, and society’s expectations. They require the
delivery of actions that are concrete and are measured across all sectors.
Governments depend on dated bureaucracies to help run the government. This poses the
constant struggle to effectively deliver public information in a timely manner. Public managers
often look to the nonprofit and private sectors or to new forms of governance in order to resolve
the ongoing problems. This includes the creation of quasi-governmental structures, to help
provide latitude. These structures are created by an act of Congress or state legislators with a
specific public purpose; the process of government contracting with both nonprofit and private
sectors to help in the delivery of public information; and the decentralization of responsibilities
from both federal and state governments.
A pragmatic point of view could be seen as a more diverse approach during the selection
of government options, including contracts, partnerships, and networks. For example, during
disaster recovery mode, it makes sense for a local government’s emergency management team to
partner with local vendors to provide immediate services that address the needs of the
community, rather than depending on lengthy bureaucratic processes that could take days or even
months. Both private and nonprofits often seek to collaborate with the government. Private
sectors can gain access to contracts that provide the procurement of low-risk steady revenues.
Nonprofits often depend on government funding in order to operate.
The intervention of the government during market failure has not always proven to be
effective. Governments often fail to achieve their objectives and results, often sought by
policymakers. Governments have virtually no competition, where private and to some extent,

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nonprofits have a competitive edge in the addressing of social needs not covered by the
government. This has brought about the question of whether nonprofit and private sectors can do
a more effective job in the delivery of public services.
The public, nonprofit, and private sectors need to strive to be more strategic, where all
sectors benefit through objectives, alliances, social responsibility, shared values, and strategic
perspectives. Objectives must deliver, increase capacity, and provide new opportunities.
Alliances must gain trust, establish values, and be well-coordinated by all parties. Social
responsibility is the idea that a business must act in the progress of society and its inhabitants.
This obligation often builds a credible reputation, improves relations with the stakeholders,
promotes long-term profits, and discourages governmental regulations. Shared values help
create a mutual dependence and shared economic and social progress that help reconvene,
redefine, and enable product development. Strategic perspectives enable managers to leverage
resources and expertise to explore, formulate, grow, evaluate, mature, and renew collaborations.
The traditional public administration framework operates within the principal-agent
model, where public managers and employees are agents of the elected officials or (the
principals). The elected officials establish governing policies through legislative and executive
actions. Social, political, and structural challenges inhibit public managers from effective
delivery of public services. Private sector involvement oftentimes can create “excludability”
where some of the population is denied adequate services for their inability to pay or lack of
funds. Nonprofits can influence government authorities to provide less funding to other similar
nonprofits in the region, to gradually eliminate the competition of social services.
The loss of control often comes from outsourcing a service to a partnership or a network.
In traditional public administration, control is imperative through a series of delegations,

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approvals, reporting measures, effective relationships, and audits to ensure accountability. The
reality is that this control has proven to be ineffective, as it is often difficult to monitor the
actions of these agents. Furthermore, the hollowing out of both expertise and funding can prove
to be a disaster. Public managers are left with the task of limited expertise and funding for
resources needed to provide public services to the community.
Contracting and outsourcing helps governments deliver services to the community. The
success of service delivery depends on the how effective the partnership and collaboration
process is across all sectors. There is a clear distinction between contracting and outsourcing. A
contract is an agreement between a government and a vendor to join together to do business and
help provide an essential service to the community. For example, a local government may
contract a vendor to help build an interactive website to engage the community, where the
government continues to manage this service with limited loss of control. Outsourcing refers to
the transferring of services from government to private. For example, a city may operate waste
management, recycling, or utilities and may choose to transfer these services to a private
business, due to growth in capacity.
Partnerships between public, nonprofit, and private sectors must be interactive and help
provide an immediate service to the community. There are three types of partnerships. The first is
short-term, where the services needed are temporary or have an end-date. For example, if a
local government is building a monorail that my affect a local business in the area, the
government may partner with the private sector to provide short-term solutions during the
development of the monorail. Second, there are intermediate partnerships, where the services
are seasonal or temporary at different intervals throughout the year. For example, during
hurricane season, a government may provide temporary housing for those who need shelter.

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Third, long-term partnerships require strategic roadmapping and financial forecasting and must
address upcoming trends and have the flexibility to grow over time. For example, a local
government with a small public budget, may not be able to afford a million or billion dollar
Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP). In this case, negotiating and vendor selection
requires careful planning through the process of Requesting for Proposal (RFP) or the
Requesting for Qualifications (RFQ) to ensure the new system will provide the essential public
services and ensure responsible management of the public budget.
Public managers can effectively address public policy through a network of public,
nonprofit, and private sectors. These networks are built on the assumption that private or
nonprofits have services needed by the government that are superior to those the government
provides. The governance of a network requires good management skills on the part of public
managers and the creation of coordinating mechanisms across network members. These differ
from those that are used for managing programs in a public sector.
There are four types of networks necessary to facilitate collaboration. First, the
informational network allows the exchange of information that is exclusive to policies,
programs, technologies, and potential solutions. Second, the developmental focuses on
awareness and providing education to the members of the services being provided. Third, the
outreach develops strategies for both program and policy changes that lead to coordination or
exchange of resources and often the decision making and implementation process is left to the
agency. Fourth, action networks call for the adoption of a collaborative course of action and the
delivery of services.
The success of a network depends on six factors. First, network governance, where the
governments must accommodate the expectations of the participants. Second, mutuality, where

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all parties have a mutual interest. Third, political support, where the government has the support
of the constituents. Fourth, communication, where the government remains transparent with the
flow of information. Fifth, risk management, where the government has a clear vision of the
risks through effective management through procedures and precautions. Sixth, performance
measurement, where the governments measure performance based on the meeting of common
goals and objectives.
The independent public-services providers (IPSPs) are a possible new member to the
collaboration process. These providers are innovative and thrive on the design of products and
services that deliver public services that are more effective than the traditional ones. IPSP’s have
three unique characteristics. First, they are self-directed, where they do not operate within the
traditional government hierarchy and operate independent to the government. Second, they are
comprised of multi-stakeholders, where they accommodate different perspectives and interests.
Third, they provide public goods and services, where they may provide better services than the
government to the citizens. An example would be Tyler Technologies’ Enterprise Resource
Planning Systems, Incode and Munis, which provide enterprise management solutions to public
sectors through their database suites. They offer trend-setting specialized solutions that appeal to
the public sector.
In conclusion, to sustain an effective collaboration process, public managers must be
skilled at managing cross-sector partnerships. Public managers should analyze their options and
see them as challenges, rather than obstacles. There are five factors involved in effectively
managing cross-sector collaboration. First, if there is a need for a new model, public managers
must address the existing workflow methods used to provide public services and determine if a
newer model is needed. Is the traditional dated bureaucratic way the only way, or are there other

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options available by partnering with nonprofits and private sectors? Second, public managers
must look at the leadership implications, where good leadership skills are essential in
developing lasting collaborative partnerships. Public managers must be able to communicate and
deliver while addressing the needs of the community. Third, public managers must foster
accountability through open government and transparency methods by keeping their citizens
engaged. This fosters trust and credibility. Fourth, public managers should develop a governing
capacity, whether partnering with public-private partnerships (PPP’s) or independent public
service providers (IPSP’s). It is important to develop government capacity and a framework to
guide the agency’s objectives and goals. Fifth, public managers should look to the future by
building roadmaps to plan and strategize using responsible forecasting to grow and achieve the
agency’s goals.
Outlining cross-sector collaborations help build a foundation that identifies the key
stakeholders and their roles. It allows the analyzation of data and cost-reduction solutions to both
public and nonprofit sectors to migrate public information from costly Legacy Enterprise
Information Systems to modern Cloud-Based Enterprise Information Systems, providing the
opportunity for future growth.

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References
Forrer, J. J., Kee, J. E., & Boyer, E. (2014). Governing Cross-Sector Collaboration.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Brand.
Incode Software | Integrated Government Software | Tyler Technologies. Retrieved
June 22, 2017, from https://www.tylertech.com/solutions-products/incode-product-suite.
Munis Software | Financial ERP Software | Tyler Technologies. Retrieved June 22, 2017,
from https://www.tylertech.com/solutions-products/munis-product-suite.