Partnerships and Strategic Alliances

Online Tools and Resources

Strategic Solutions, La Piana Associates
The Strategic Solutions website contains resources on a continuum of partnerships — including but not limited to mergers, joint ventures, administrative consolidations, and joint programming — through which nonprofits attempt to anticipate or respond to environmental threats and opportunities. These partnerships are differentiated from collaboration in that they involve a change in the locus of control of at least a portion of one or more of the organizations involved. Real Collaboration: A Guide for Grantmakers and A Partnership Continuum are among the helpful resources for those considering collaboration.
www.lapiana.org/ss/index.html

Leader to Leader Institute, Collaboration Resources
The website, with materials from the Drucker Foundation, has resources on how to prepare, plan, develop, and renew strategic alliances with businesses. The Meeting the Collaboration Challenge Workbook has a number of useful tools.
www.druckerfoundation.com/collaboration/index.html

Collaboration Resource List
Visit this website for a bibliography of collaboration resources.
www.wilder.org/pubs/collab_bibliography/collaboration_bibliography.htm

Suggested Reading

Articles

Partnerships: Twelve Temptations, Treasures and Traps. While written for a journalism audience, this is a great list of a dozen things to remember and consider before embarking on a partnership. www.bpjtv.org/resources/04partnerships_12tips.pdf

A Partnership Prenuptial Contract. Just like personal relationships, partnerships can be filled with satisfaction, strategy, and struggle. Mary Anne Alhadeff takes a matrimonial view of the questions you should ask before taking the plunge.
www.bpjtv.org/resources/index.cfm?resourcesdoc=partnership_prenuptial

Strategic Alliance, Beware the Pitfalls. The Small Business Administration’s Online Women’s Business Center has provided a short list of questions to ask yourself before you decide to enter into a partnership. www.onlinewbc.gov/docs/expanding/alli_pitfalls.html

Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory. The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory is based on research conducted by Wilder Research Center to determine what ingredients make for a successful collaboration. The researchers identified twenty factors that influence the success of a collaboration. These factors have been reviewed by other researchers and employed by numerous practitioners of collaboration. The inventory can be used to assess the likelihood of success before beginning collaborative work or to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your collaborative venture. The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory can prompt planning, and improved management of a collaborative group at any point during the initiative. www.wilder.org/pubs/inventory/collaboration.html

Publications

Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management. Meeting the Collaboration Challenge Workbook: Developing Strategic Alliances Between Nonprofit Organizations and Businesses. In Meeting the Collaboration Challenge, the Drucker Foundation provides specific guidance to help nonprofits of every size put collaboration into practice. This workbook, its companion videotape, and The Collaboration Challenge help a nonprofit organization further its mission through strategic alliances with businesses. www.druckerfoundation.com/collaboration/index.html

La Piana, David. The Nonprofit Mergers Workbook: The Leader’s Guide to Considering, Negotiating, and Executing a Merger. Here’s everything you’ve wanted (and should) know about nonprofit mergers. This practical guide walks you through the entire merger process from assessing your reasons and readiness, to finding a partner, negotiating the deal, and completing the merger.

Mattessich, Paul, Murray-Close, Marta, and Monsey, Barbara. Collaboration: What Makes It Work, 2nd Edition. What makes the difference between a collaboration's failure or success? Collaboration: What Makes It Work, Second Edition answers this question with an up-to-date and in-depth review of collaboration research. This new edition also includes The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory.
www.wilder.org/pubs/index.html#Collaboration

McGlaughlin, Thomas. Nonprofit Mergers and Alliances : A Strategic Planning Guide. This award-winning book is a clear, practical, step-by-step guide to the merger process--from preliminary considerations to actual implementation for nonprofit organizations. With more and more nonprofits considering merger, this is a book to have on one’s bookshelf ready for the day a merger or alliance opportunity presents itself. www.wilder.org/pubs/mergers/index.html

Winer, Michael and Ray, Karen. Collaboration Handbook: Creating, Sustaining, and Enjoying the Journey. This is the complete guide to putting together a collaboration that gets results. Readers will see how to get a collaboration going, define the results they’re after, determine everyone’s roles, create an action plan, and evaluate the results. It includes a case study, worksheets, and special sidebars with helpful tips such as what to do at the first meeting. www.wilder.org/pubs/index.html#Collaboration

© Public Health Institute, Center for Civic Partnerships 1999

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