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Thinking About Collaborations? 5 Tips to Get Started

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The fun for me in collaboration is, one, working with other people just makes you smarter; that’s proven. Lin-Manuel Miranda

Do you ever feel a little isolated and alone as a small nonprofit in a vast sea of bigger fish? Or are you struggling with your limited time and resources to boost your nonprofit but have run low on ideas or inspiration? For many nonprofits, building collaborations with other similar organizations can be a mutually productive way to achieve greater impact than by working on their own.

One research study showed that 91 percent of nonprofits engage in some form of collaborative relationship for a variety of reasons. That seems rather high, but it might depend on the type of collaborations that have been formed. In fact, three main reasons to engage in a collaborative relationship include (1) to boost organizational efficiency, (2) to increase organizational effectiveness, or (3) to drive broader social and systems change (Simonin, Samali, Zohdy, Laidler-Kylander, 2016).

A collaboration can result in shared services, joint programming, collective events, problem solving correlated issues, and exposure to fresh perspectives along with innovative solutions. Some might even result in a complete merger of organizations. In an increasingly challenging atmosphere for nonprofits, cultivating collaborations can be a smart idea.

Here are five ways to start thinking about forming a collaboration with other nonprofit organizations to strengthen capacity and the potential for a more sustainable future.

1.Understand What You Want from the Collaboration

An organization should determine what they want from the collaborative relationship before getting started. Identify clear goals organization goals for the new relationship. What needs could a relationship with another organization assist?  What strategic benefits could become a reality through an alliance with one or more partners? Would the relationship be ongoing or for a particular length of time? Start with an internal analysis of your organization to determine how a collaborative relationship would be beneficial. This also helps you determine the partners that would be the best for you to approach when you’re ready. 

2. Get Your Ducks in a Row

What will your organization bring to the table in a collaboration? Are you strong and clear on your mission? Is your board working harmoniously and providing good governance? Are operations in order or are there programs or services that need to be revised or even eliminated?  Do you understand your financial position and potential? These are just some of the questions to ask prior to going into a collaboration. You don’t have to be perfect before exploring collaborations but you need to know what you bring to the table to work from a position of strength. 

3. Start Small to Test the Waters

Instead of jumping into a collaboration with two feet, an option is to start small with a short-term relationship to test the waters. For instance, can you work together on an event? Can you share a resource to build capacity in a particular area of operations? Starting with a small project or event gives you time to assess the potential partnership. See if you work well together. Do your missions actually mesh well? Can your people get along with each other without conflict? You’ll have a better sense if an actual collaboration will be beneficial or not. The collaboration can grow into something more extensive based on the outcomes of an initial short encounter.

4. Understand Your Why

Collaborations are a means to an end—not an end in itself. In other words, be clear on why you’re forming a collaboration. Are you finding a way to increase your resources? Will this allow a more powerful impact on a particular social problem? Will both organizations be more effective than working alone? Being clear on your “why” let’s you form the appropriate type of partnership with others. You get away from a cookie-cutter idea of how the collaboration should look and design what brings you to your goal.

5. Start Looking for the Right Partner

Who in your environment might make a good partner and why? That’s one of the big questions to start asking as you ponder collaborations. Get both leadership and board involved in looking around to see how you and other organizations might complement, enhance, or correctly diversify each other. Consider the core competencies of your organization and those of an organization you’d like to consider as a partner. Core competencies are what you do best, and often better than anyone else. How does this connect with a social need in the community being served by a compatible organization? Would working together help move the social change you envision forward?  If so, you might have identified a potential partner to start your collaborative efforts.

Building collaborations doesn’t happen overnight . . . but if you don’t get started thinking about and planning them, they won’t happen at all. Use these 5 tips to help you start thinking about how to start the collaborative process.

Additional Resources:

Simonin, Samali, Zohdy, Laidler-Kylander. (2016) Why and How Do Nonprofits Work Together? https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/columns/the-sustainable-nonprofit/why-and-how-do-nonprofits-work-together

Taylor (2017) Hacking Nonprofit collaboration.  https://ssir.org/articles/entry/hacking_nonprofit_collaboration

Implement a Monthly ED/CEO Report to Keep Your Board Informed

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As a nonprofit leader (ED/CEO), it can be difficult when members of the Board of Directors aren’t familiar with or knowledgeable about the overall operations of the organization—especially since the board is the governing body of the nonprofit and their decisions directly impact how efficiently and effectively a nonprofit can function. This can lead to some challenging conditions, especially when decisions are made that aren’t in line with the nonprofit’s mission or its strategic plan. 

While you can’t compel board members to stay informed, many EDs/CEOs put together a monthly informational board packet before a board meeting to update their board members and keep them in the loop about the nonprofit’s ongoing activities. Now, I know many of you are saying, “I already really try to do that, but it’s not working!” Believe me, I hear you.

There’s nothing more exasperating than sending out your board packet with all of that great material, only to have board members ask for a copy of the packet when they arrive at the meeting. And as the meeting progresses, it can become obvious that some of the board members didn’t read the packet beforehand and aren’t prepared to make fully informed decisions. Without a clear, coherent path for the organization’s leader and staff to follow, frustration, burnout and lack of goal attainment may soon follow.

So . . . what’s a CEO/ED to do?

The nonprofit is competing for the attention of board members who, like many of us, are bombarded with information overload in their professional and personal lives. Take a page from the “less is more” concept of minimalism and do some “decluttering” for them by preparing a condensed, yet highly informative Executive Director/CEO Report (sometimes called an Executive Summary). You can send this to all board members separate from or along with the full board packet. A busy board member is much more likely to read an ED/CEO Report even if they don’t take time to review the complete packet.
 
Five Suggested Areas to Include in the CEO/ED Report:

  1. Updates on strategic goals: The organization’s strategic goals should guide the daily operations of your nonprofit, and board members should have a part in developing and maintaining these goals. Therefore, they need to know what’s going on each month that impacts aspects of the overall strategic goals. Give a brief report on activities that affected these goals each month.
  2. Financial overview: While a financial report should be given at each meeting, the organization leader could provide a brief summary of the primary facts and figures the board needs to know. This could include total expenses, income, and cash available at the end of each month, along with a summary of any recent fundraising activities and results.
  3. Updates on priority matters: Are you waiting for a big donation to arrive? Is there news about a tax or compliance issue? Include these announcements in a regular section of the report to keep the board updated.
  4. A connection to the mission: What has the organization done this month that highlights its mission? Who has been served, and where did you make an impact? Let the board know the good work associated with the nonprofit’s mission by sharing a member testimonial or short story to illustrate the positive activity.
  5. How can the board help: Many board members are happy to provide a helping hand if asked, but they often have no idea about what to do or how to provide support. Include a section suggesting ways the nonprofit could use the expertise of your board members. This could be as simple as reminding them to seek out new board members with particular skill sets, or requesting assistance on a specific volunteer task during the month.

In conclusion, providing board members with a concise executive summary each month can: (1) strengthen the communication between the CEO/ED, board members and staff, and (2) enable board members to formulate more well-considered decisions at board meetings. Conscientious board members need and should want to know what’s happening in the organization. The monthly ED/CEO Report gives board members insights into daily nonprofit activities, and highlights the hard work that the leadership and staff tackle every day.
 
Resources for developing an ED/CEO Report for the Board of Directors:
 
How to Write a Good Board Report
https://www.joangarry.com/board-report-template/
 
Board Members Zoning Out? Stop Reading the CEO Report
https://blog.boardsource.org/blog/board-members-zoning-out-stop-reading-the-ceos-report

Training and Orientation for New Board Members

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After meeting dozens of people who would like to serve on a nonprofit board, one thing they all have in common is their desire to do a great job as a board member. However, very few small nonprofit staffs have the expertise or personnel readily available to provide new board members with the tools needed to navigate through the web of policies and procedures they will encounter.

Why New Board Members Need Training

Most nonprofits are just happy to find a person interested enough to join the board—but to keep them engaged and feeling productive, it’s necessary to do some training. That’s because a new board member may have no idea of what needs to be done or how to do it. Even new members with prior board experience will need to learn the ins and outs of the particular nonprofit’s board operations.

How Orientation and Training Help New Board Members
 
Board orientation and training is therefore important for a member because it helps them learn how they can best serve as a professional asset to the nonprofit. These sessions provide new board members with the specific knowledge and resources to know how to execute their roles and responsibilities successfully.  Traditionally, the Board President and the CEO or Executive Director take the lead in instructing and familiarizing new members by discussing the board’s and nonprofit’s goals and priorities. Orientations also allow current board members to interact and share information about how the nonprofit and the board function together.

Steps to Board Orientation and Training
 
Ideally, a board needs to have a plan in place for orientation and a process for training new board members. Below are some guidelines, and Spokes members can visit the Resource Library page on our website to find a more complete listing.

  • Orientation should take place shortly after a new member is elected to the board, ideally before the new member’s first meeting, and should be conducted by the board chair along with the executive director and anyone else they think is appropriate.
  • New board members should be fully briefed on the activities of the nonprofit, the history of the organization and their strategic plan, and be given copies of prior board minutes, the articles of incorporation and bylaws in a New Board Member Orientation Manual customized to reflect the nonprofit’s administrative structure. 
  • A board agenda and any documents needed for their first meeting should be added into the New Member Board Orientation Manual.
  • Assign a current board member as a “buddy” to mentor a new board member, and ask the new member if they would like to join one of the board committees as well. Working with a smaller group on a specific project can help balance out the sometimes overwhelming number of issues a new board member must digest at the beginning of their term.

Resources for Board Orientation and Training

Spokes Members can find a more complete outline on their Member’s Online Resource Library page:
https://spokesfornonprofits.z2systems.com/np/signIn.do?target=%2Fpublicaccess%2FneonPage.do%3FpageId%3D1%26

Member General Resources Links:
https://www.spokesfornonprofits.org/services/nonprofit-resource-links/

Additional Information:

Board Orientation:
https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/board-orientation

Board Manual Template:
https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/industry-leadership/being-a-board-member/pubs/board-manual-template.doc


A Gold Mine of Grantmakers

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Are you struggling to find the grants you need? Imagine how convenient it would be to have a source of potential funding opportunities readily available right at your fingertips! The Foundation Directory Online (or the FDO), is a major benefit for Spokes members. This database features expanded profiles of more than 140,000 potential grantmakers offering at least 11 million types of grants valued at an estimated $250 billion.

Searching the internet to find grants relevant to your organization can be time consuming and tedious. That’s the value of the FDO, which offers multiple ways to quickly narrow your focus on finding compatible funders. A search on the FDO can result in a finely defined list of potential foundations with an interest in the specific areas of need for your organization. Tables and charts on the size, scope, and priorities of the foundation help you target your grant proposal for the best possibility of success.

Understanding the value of this database is important. Almost 75% of grantmakers do not have a website, making them difficult if not impossible to find. The FDO keeps an updated listing of foundations that have been verified, coded, and sorted by funding areas so members can quickly determine which ones are relevant for their business. 
 
The cost of a one-year membership with the FDO is $4,000, but Spokes members receive free access to the database in several ways. The FDO is available to individual members or organization members.

The most successful grants often come as the result of a personal connection with the granting organization. However, making a personal connection can be more challenging than writing a compelling narrative. Spokes Members can now connect grant research and personal relationships through LinkedIn, which will allow you to quickly and easily identify personal connections between you or your board members and key staff members of foundations and granting organizations. Spokes members can simply log onto FDO, select a foundation, view its profile, and click on the LinkedIn logo to see who in your network may know someone at the foundation.

In order to take full advantage of this new system, be sure to establish an organization profile on LinkedIn and connect each of your board members with it. That way, you’ll be able to immediately see any connections between your team and the grantmaker’s team.

Once you do find a connection, ask the connected board member to send an outreach letter to introduce your organization to the foundation. (This is a great strategy for reaching out to foundations that don’t accept uninvited grant applications, as well.) Find a sample outreach letter here.

Spokes Makes Marketing Easier

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Raising the visibility of your nonprofit organization can be a challenge, especially in San Luis Obispo County where there is plenty of competition from other nonprofits also looking to stand out. That’s why Spokes wants to find a few ways to make marketing easier for member nonprofits.

To be effective in promoting your organization, you need to establish a strategic purpose for each marketing tool you develop. For example, social media is extremely popular these days. Just like Spokes, many of our member nonprofits are using Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram to get in front of their target market. But just having a presence on these sites isn’t enough; you have to ask yourself “What’s my intended outcome” every time you take a marketing action.

For instance, how will posting on social media bring more attention to your organization? What action do you want to inspire any reader to take after reading your posting?  How can you make what you post relevant to the reader, so they can identify with something happening to your mission that is in the news or that will motivate the reader to support you through a donation? And how might this post relate to other articles that have already been posted on a particular site?

Breaking through the “busyness” of daily life to attain visibility in a crowded marketing world is an ongoing challenge.  There’s always another event to attend and only so many days and dollars for you and your supporters to expend. Focus on determining exactly who your supporters are, what they like, what moves them to give their money to your cause, and why they want to see you flourish. That means being clear and consistent in all of your messaging and making sure that your mission stays front and center. A nonprofit’s mission is the heart of what they do, so be very specific about your message and keep it in front of as many people as possible. Whether you engage in public speaking, write articles, or post on social media, make sure that your mission is distinctive and well-defined. 

Spokes is working on ways to benefit member organizations by helping them to increase their visibility. Here are some ideas for you to consider:

Nonprofit Opportunities Page: Many of our nonprofit organization members have asked Spokes to help get the word out about an opening on their Board of Directors, a job offer or an upcoming event. Check out our website’s new Nonprofit Opportunities page under the “Services” area. If you are a member of Spokes and have an announcement you would like to share, follow the directions on the page to send us the information to post. The information will be available to anyone browsing our website. Click here to view Spokes’ Opportunities Page on our website.

Organization Member Highlights: Is your nonprofit in the news? Are you making some dynamic changes or updates to your activities? Starting this week, Spokes will be highlighting exciting and important news about members in our bi-weekly newsletter.   

2019 Business Expo at the Expo Booth: Spokes will have a booth at the 2019 Business Expo at the Expo trade show on Wednesday, May 15, from 4-7 p.m., which is being held at the at the Alex Madonna Expo Center in San Luis Obispo. If you have spent time at this event in the past, then you know it can be an outstanding marketing opportunity for your nonprofit organization. With more than 120 exhibitors and thousands of members of the local business community in attendance, we want to offer Spokes members a chance to boost their visibility by joining us as a part of our booth. This will be Spokes’ first time as an exhibitor, and we are offering Spokes member organizations the opportunity to have one promotional piece, brochure, or event announcement displayed at our booth to be handed out to attendees. A contribution of $25 is asked for this opportunity and there will only be 20 available spots. Please contact Consuelo or Howard at the Spokes office (805-547-2244) if you are interested.

Here are a few resources for even more ideas for marketing your nonprofit:

5 Ways to Market Your Nonprofit: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-to-let-the-world-know-about-your-nonprofit-2502367

10 Marketing Lessons for All Nonprofits: https://www.classy.org/blog/10-marketing-lessons-for-all-nonprofits/

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