In today’s highly competitive funding arena, nonprofits are increasingly open to collaborative projects or mergers with other agencies.  Successful partnerships emerge when participating groups create strong organizational systems and have a clearly defined mission.  The United Way of Greater Milwaukee recently funded the Collaboration Learning Project to assist nonprofit agencies in collaboration and merger initiatives.  The project focused on contributing funding to five different partnerships in the Milwaukee area and following their progress over a three-year period.  Here’s what the project identified as the Characteristics of Successful Partnerships:

Committed Leadership

Successful collaboratives are staffed and led by people who have a sense of urgency about outcomes and a keen sense of how to get things done.  Groups that experienced the greatest success had leaders that did not view the work of the partnership as external to their everyday activities. A need was identified and their level of commitment led them to find a way to make the partnership a part of their regular efforts.

Unambiguous Goals

Like strong leadership, a clear set of realistic goals is necessary for a collaborative to succeed.  Although important, a shared vision is not enough to drive a partnership to achieve positive outcomes. The groups that experienced the greatest success documented the explicit objectives they wanted to achieve and revisited them at each meeting to ensure progress.

Clearly Defined Roles

Developing clearly defined roles is another important criterion for collaborative success. Partnerships that made the most progress had a specific plan for how each organization would contribute its unique services to achieve mutually identified goals. While partnerships with clearly identified roles had ownership of the group process and product, partnerships with ambiguous roles had the tendency to feel disengaged.

Commitment at Multiple Levels of the Organization

Another criterion for partnership success is commitment at multiple levels of the organization. Partnerships that realized the most success had commitment at both the executive and staff levels.

Dedicated Staff Time

Regardless of how committed an organization is to the vision of a particular partnership, it is important to address the day-to-day staff time and agency resources the collaboration will require and formulate a realistic plan for meeting those needs.

Sustainability in the Midst of Change

According to David La Piana in Real Collaboration: A Guide for Grantmakers, “since so much of the success of any collaborative grows out of the positive relationships of the individuals involved, any changes in the core founding group can lead to crisis.”  For this reason, it is important to orient new members to ensure that there is continuous leadership if a key leader vacates their position.

Although a variety of factors are necessary for a collaborative to flourish, committed leadership, unambiguous goals, clearly defined roles, commitment at multiple levels of the organization, dedicated staff time, and sustainability in the midst of change are the key indicators identified by United Way’s Collaboration Learning Project Committee upon completion of the three year Project. These were the common threads that linked the five partnerships regardless of the community need they were responding to or the outcomes they were setting out to achieve.

To receive your free copy of the Non-Profit Collaboration Guide (a collaborative effort of the United Way of Greater Milwaukee, the University of Wisconsin, the Nonprofit Management Fund and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation) please call (314) 317-2284 or e-mail your request to Lisa Dinga with "Free Report" in the subject line.

The Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis (LFS) has funded dozens of social service organizations through its Partnership Program Grants program.  The product of the sale of Lutheran Medical Center in 1985, $34 million in proceeds was used to establish the foundation.  The foundation is owned by 67 Missouri Lutheran Synod Churches.  Through its Partnership Program, the foundation favors Lutheran organizations and congregations that provide health and human care services. 

For over 20 years, LFS supported the work of Lutheran Ministries Association, Good Samaritan Service Center and Friend of Moms—the three agencies who merged to form Humanitri.  The merger began when their respective boards were assessing programs and services.  Both agency leaders and foundation board members recognized the economic advantages of consolidation.  So the foundation, which normally funds only programs and capital projects, provided funding for a collaboration study (headed by Paradigm Shift Studio) and start up costs for the first three years of the new entity.   Ann Vazquez, President of LFS, cites the foundation’s long-standing relationship with these agencies as the reason for this special one-time capacity building grant.  Ann reports that the LFS board is happy with what they see happening in Humanitri’s organization.  They look forward to the betterment of the community and the people they serve through this new agency.

LFS also gave Partnership Program Grants to the following organizations in 2006:  Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Illinois, Connections to Success, Gateway Greening, Hyde Park Outreach, the Christian Legal Society and Grace Place Lutheran Retreats.  There are three grant cycles per year. Grant recipients provide both narrative and financial reports on grant progress.    For more information, visit www.lutheranfoundation.org.

Case Study:  Humanitri
A Multi-Agency Collaboration to Strengthen Services and Maximize Resources

The Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis (see Funder Spotlight) sought to forge a collaborative community among six Lutheran non-profit social service agencies. The Foundation knew collaboration would strengthen social services and maximize funding resources among

the agencies.  The Foundation invited Paradigm Shift Studio to lead the process.

Of the six agencies initially engaged in the process, three agencies—Lutheran Ministries Association, Good Samaritan Service Center for the Homeless and Friend of Moms—emerged as potential partners.  The three agencies actively collaborated on funding opportunities, volunteers and public awareness. They secured a collaborative grant to hire a staff person to work with local congregations on planned giving and recruiting and training youth and adult leaders from throughout the community. Through these collaborative efforts the three agencies created an effective and efficient partnership and in 2006 merged into one stronger agency, Humanitri.  The logo depicts the three organizations (symbolized as three people) reaching out to serve their constituencies. 

Today, Humanitri is growing strong through collaboration.  The emphasis on “humanity” in the new organization’s name expresses the collaborative’s focus on social service, according to Valorie Ferlis and Nancy Amundson, who serve in the Resource Development Department of Humanitri.  President/CEO Robert Otrembiak is overseeing the merger of staff resources and supporting the mission effectiveness of the collaborating agencies.  Rob convened the staff in December of 2006 at the new Humanitri administrative center.  The three agencies will ultimately be housed together at this location.

Though the merger is young, staff members are seeking creative ways to mesh the three agency’s programs to better serve their clients.  Recently, The National Fatherhood Initiative awarded Humanitri a $25,000 capacity building grant which will blend programs focused on teen fathers and chaplains who minister to fathers in prison.  Staff members with various specialties in development and mission effectiveness share their expertise through inter-agency collaborations.  Key to the merger process will be communication between staff members, and with volunteers and donors.  “They’ve made an investment in you” as a social service agency, explains Nancy.  “They are important stakeholders.”

How the Merger Began

Paradigm Shift Studio conducted a Collaborative Appreciative Inquiry, engaging stakeholders from the agencies. Paradigm’s project guided the agencies to:

• Identify each agency’s strengths and the role they could play in collaborative efforts;
• Define and visualize the roles constructive collaboration could play in encouraging their organizational and inter-organizational effectiveness;
• Increase awareness of each agency’s mission, vision, and strengths throughout the Lutheran community.

Outcomes

The Collaborative Appreciative Inquiry immediately yielded several significant outcomes that built agency capacity, both individually and collectively, including:

• The creation of a common language for collaboration models that all agencies desired and could use;
• The education of all the Executive Directors and Boards of Directors on the forms of collaboration and the strengths each agency possessed, and the strengthening of relationships among executive directors, staff members, and board members at each agency;
• The creation of a common mission and purpose and increased awareness of services that served the St. Louis and Lutheran communities.

Understanding how to create the community partnerships some funders require may be overwhelming, but it is also the key securing additional resources and maximizing organization impact.  Paradigm Shift Studio helps nonprofit organizations identify strategic partners and create a plan for win-win relationships.  You can learn more at www.humanitri.org

Partner Spotlight:  AccuPay, APS, LLC

AccuPay is a full payroll service.  Clients call or fax in hours and AccuPay takes care of the rest—from calculating taxes, cutting paychecks or issues Direct Deposits to paying taxes and preparing quarterly and yearend reports.

AccuPay is small enough to understand the meaning of “quality customer service” and large enough to serve every payroll-related need.  Clients are assigned a designated payroll specialist, which minimizes response time.  There are no hidden costs.  AccuPay is so sure of their services that they offer “One Month Free,” confident those new clients won’t leave. 

As part of the Partner Program, Paradigm Shift Studio clients receive at no extra cost: 

Job Costing; New Hire Reporting; GL Export into Quickbooks; Accurals tracking; Direct Deposit; Digital Signature on checks; Pressure seal checks for privacy and their first month free.  Other services include:  Time Keeping System; Pay as You go Worker Comp; Insurance – Health, Dental, Life, AFLAC; Deferred comp/retirement; HR audit.

Reta Seals, AccuPay founder, has always enjoyed working with numbers and loves to figure out why 2 + 2 doesn’t always add up to 4.  She worked for a CPA firm in the early 1990’s and discovered it was difficult dealing with the large corporate payroll services due to the poor service and slow response.  One day a payroll software trial showed up in the mail and she decided “Why not?”  The rest is history; she will be in business for 15 years this July 1st.

Here’s what one happy client has to say about AccuPay:

I want to thank you for your efficient and timely assistance with our recent dual bonus request and all the different requirements that we had. Our previous service would not have been able to deal with the situation, resulting in a lot of extra work for us.

Linda Wohletz, President Medical Business Office, Inc.

AccuPay APS LLC

400 Chesterfield Ctr, Ste 400

Chesterfield, MO   63017

1-800-354-0087 or 636-537-5808

reta@accupayaps.net