Forming and Fostering Powerful Partnerships Benefits of and How To Basics for Powerful Partnerships are needed in any space. Focus: Non-Profits Nonprofits are in dire need of change and growth. The old models are not working and in fact we often cause more harm to our overall communities than growth. Non-profit employees, and the communities we serve are losing more time and energy every day. The quality of life, in the communities which need the most help, is diminishing. Non-profits are started with the community in mind. On-boarded staff have their hearts focused on community as well. That is what I love most about the non-profit sector, the love of community. But that love of community comes at a physical and mental cost to most professionals that is too high to bear. This lack of return on investment, leaves staff and subsequently the communities we serve, in extreme turmoil and hopelessness for the future. My name is Amel Khalil and I founded Helping Other People Evolve (HOPE) www.hopengo.org to handle these problems. My partners and I founded HOPE to tackle the most significant issues we experienced as a result of running and operating non-profits. Some of these issues include, donor fatigue, of lack of resources & operational expenses, staff burnout and unqualified leadership/Board members. There are so many more. As a non-profit or business professional, “joining forces” doesn’t just make your life easier, it frees up your time to focus on what you value most: your personal and professional mission.
The following is a list of reasons to collaborate with others and a few ideas to get you started in forming powerful partnerships with transparency in mind. Forming powerful partnerships looks like sharing resources whether it be services, or sharing physical space. Some examples of each model are below.
Why should my organization consider shared services? There are five key benefits: Purchasing Power By purchasing services collectively, organizations can take advantage of economies of scale. Organizations build their purchasing power by lowering per unit prices and generating savings typically available only to large institutions. Efficiency Through shared services, organizations decrease the expense of redundant services and increase investment in program-related activities to fulfill their missions. Shared services can also standardize processes across organizations for faster service. Quality Resources Shared services allow nonprofit organizations to access specialized expertise, improved services, and new technologies that could otherwise be unaffordable or unavailable. Employee Retention Shared services can offer the opportunity for both skilled technical staff and program staff to focus on their core competencies, creating higher job satisfaction. With staff resources focused on their specialties, organizations can realize better quality control and reduce their overall risk.
Stability and Investment When mission-based nonprofit organizations create shared services programs, they are creating long-term systems to keep the associated resources, expertise, and financial exchange in the nonprofit sector. Shared services can also provide built-in back up, reducing the risk of losing institutional knowledge and practice when an individual staff person leaves, and creating overlapping service teams. https://www.nonprofitcenters.org/5-benefits-shared-services-nonprofits/
Examples of Shared Services. Shared service opportunities include:
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Fiscal Sponsorship — Organizations come together under one 501c3 umbrella that provides capacity building and joint back-office services. TSNE MissionWorks is a fiscal sponsor.
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Management Service Organizations — Nonprofit or for-profit organizations that provide back-office services, while allowing nonprofits to retain their own 501c3 status
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Joint Contracting — Partnering nonprofits create a for-profit LLC under which they hire, pay, and manage employees who do the shared services work for those organizations.
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Connective Mechanisms — Nonprofit organizations come together to form groups, networks or collectives to share knowledge and expertise around back-office services.
NONPROFIT CENTERS
Nonprofit centers are physical spaces — a building or campus — where two or more mission-driven organizations come together to co-locate for mutual benefit. These benefits can range from savings in rent, to shared programming and back-office services. Nearly 95% of nonprofit centers have successfully managed to offer below-market rental rates that save individual organizations 7% on average according to a 2015 survey by The Nonprofit Centers Network
Nonprofit centers usually fall within four categories: Multi-sector spaces that house nonprofits of any type, mission or field; themed centers that house organizations in a specific field such as arts and culture or environmental advocacy; one-stop hubs that house nonprofits serving several needs within a community, for example resources for children and families; and co-working spaces that provide shared space for start-up or incubating nonprofits. Although the idea of moving to a shared services model may seem daunting at first, it’s important to remember that nonprofits exist to provide needed services. Ideally, executive directors and nonprofit staff (particularly in smaller, budget conscious organizations) should be spending their valuable time focused on increasing community impact, not negotiating rental agreements, managing health insurance options, or seeking pro bono legal counsel. By maximizing economies of scale through shared workspaces like nonprofit centers and shared services, nonprofit organizations have the opportunity to save money, build capacity, and focus on delivering their mission.
https://www.tsne.org/blog/using-shared-services-maximize-your-nonprofit-bu dget
Benefit at a glance:
Tips for Embarking on Shared Services Models As the shared services model gains momentum across the country, it’s important to review best practices for starting this type of collaboration from those who have already embarked on the process. Here are the most common trends: ● Enlist a third-party to facilitate the process: Having a neutral third-party that has no affiliation with any of the organizations helps facilitate honest conversation about each organization’s commitment to shared services, capacity, responsibilities and concerns. We recommend conducting a feasibility assessment, which objectively reviews the options, and ends with a go/no-go decision. ●
Find a lead funder to subsidize start-up costs: A vast majority of the shared service collaborations in the nonprofit sector have a lead funder that
subsidizes the start-up costs. Shared services collaborations come in many forms and have diverse financial models – some utilize excess capacity of one organization, some form a cooperative, and others hire an intermediary to provide services. ●
Build a robust financial model to assess the viability of cost savings: Ensuring that the collaboration will generate savings requires a robust financial model that includes a realistic estimation of start-up as well as ongoing operating costs. It may take two to three years to realize savings, and that often requires a critical mass, so it is important that the model includes the number of nonprofit participants the collaboration needs to reach that critical mass.
Shared services can be a great way for smaller nonprofits to reap the benefits of larger institutional players in the sector while achieving savings they can reinvest in the programs that help those they serve.
https://socialimpactarchitects.com/shared-services/