Skip to main content

Building Capacity for Sustained Collaboration

This report highlights the groundbreaking efforts of a new national network of pooled funding initiatives for sustained collaboration. These local initiatives support nonprofit capacity to explore mergers, joint ventures, partnerships, and other arrangements that permanently change an organization’s business or operating model.

Download Report

The social sector is facing a perfect storm. Demand for community services keeps rising, government funding is declining, more philanthropy is concentrated in fewer hands, and smaller donors are giving less. And this was before the C-19 pandemic and economic recession hit. An already dire situation has accelerated, featuring skyrocketing demand for social services coupled with falling revenue—leaving many nonprofits facing an uncertain future. As a result, demand for “sustained collaboration” has taken off, as nonprofits seek to combine resources and put mission impact ahead of organizational identities.

Over the past decade, more than 100 local foundations in seven communities have committed $20 million in capital and created pooled-funding initiatives to help local nonprofits pursue “a continuum of organizational strategies for structured collaboration that represent a long-term and permanent change to their business or operating models.” These strategies can take the form of mergers, joint ventures, partnerships, and other arrangements. Six local initiatives are now launching the national Sustained Collaboration Network (SCN) to develop best practices and share frameworks and tools that will benefit members and other communities or issue-based funders considering similar efforts.

The launch of this network couldn’t be more timely. In our new report, Building Capacity for Sustained Collaboration, readers will find stories from communities that have experimented with pooled funding models for supporting sustained collaboration, two case studies of local initiatives in Los Angeles and New York, and a list of emerging practices for other communities and funders seeking to emulate this approach. The time is ripe for funders and nonprofits to begin thinking beyond the immediate crisis and contemplate the structural reform needed to create a more sustainable, resilient sector that can maximize impact.

Download Report

News & Events

Tara Peterson, CHANGE Philanthropy Summit 2021, “Strategic Restructuring to Advance Gender and Racial Equity”

| Webinar | No Comments
Webinar Description: Tara Peterson, CHANGE Philanthropy Summit 2021 “Strategic Restructuring to Advance Gender and Racial Equity”, March 15, 2022

The Sustained Collaboration Network Conference 2022

| Event | No Comments
Who/What: The Sustained Collaboration Network’s 2022 Conference will bring funders together from across the country to connect on the importance of sustained collaboration as a meaningful form of nonprofit capacity…

The Sustained Collaboration Network Training Institute

| News | No Comments
What: The new Sustained Collaboration Network (SCN)—a network of 7+ local pooled funds supporting greater collaboration among nonprofits—is hosting a first-ever online institute for consultants engaged in this work. The…

Nora Hannah, Director of the Arizona Together for Impact Fund, facilitates “How to Find Your Perfect 10: Finding the Right Collaborator for your Organization.”

| Webinar | No Comments
Part 1 Part 2 Event Description: Kelly Fryer provides detail and content on the subject of collaborator identification and selection. Kelly has 25+ years of experience as a nonprofit executive,…

Our Sponsors