Why Collaboration Often Fails

Everyone gets excited at the idea of collaboration. Executive directors light up when discussing joint initiatives. Board members nod enthusiastically about partnership possibilities. Funders actively encourage organizations to work together.

But most collaborative efforts fail. Not from bad intentions or inadequate planning. They fail because we're dishonest about what we really want from collaboration and what's actually required to make it work.

The Hidden Motivation

If we're honest about expectations for collaboration, the assumption is this: by working together, we'll develop a unique, high impact project or program, and therefore attract more funding. The need for funding is always an underlying motivation in the social service space, both publicly funded and nonprofit. That's neither good nor bad. It's simply reality.

In times like this, after a recession or pandemic when the federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars supporting households and stabilizing the economy, social service organizations find themselves abnormally large with extensive administrative staff managing numerous contracts. These organizations want to maintain their size. The hope is that through collaboration, we'll attract more funding and everyone can stay big.

There are times when this works, especially pursuing certain federal contracts. Ten years ago, as we exited the Great Recession and federal stimulus dollars dried up, many collaborative efforts successfully secured large Department of Labor grants. The model seemed proven.

Why That Model No Longer Works

We're now in a time when federal funding is pulling back as community needs increase. Organizations hope that collaboration will attract more local funding or private sector support. But there's an obstacle they don't want to acknowledge.

Most organizations aren't just too big. They're inefficient, low impact, and redundant.

A typical collaboration involves five or six organizations offering similar programs because they've collected various contracts over the years to maintain funding levels. This variety leads to mission creep or dilution. Social service organizations at their best usually excel at one or two things. In this funding environment, it's common for organizations to have six or seven programs, none of which they do with particular excellence or sustainable community impact.

The Counterintuitive Solution

For collaboration to work, the goal for each organization must be counterintuitive: aspire to be leaner and more focused, not larger and more ambiguous.

An organization offering financial literacy alongside Medicare enrollment and food stamp awareness programs is not going to attract meaningful partners. An organization wanting to excel at financial literacy or youth mental health needs to let contracts go to complementary partners who already run those programs, and focus on being excellent at one or maybe two things.

This means more nonprofit organizations with 10 staff members instead of 25. But those organizations will be leaner, higher impact, and able to tell a clear story about what they offer the community. They'll also be much more effective and enthusiastic collaborators because there's less conflict and redundancy between partners.

The Real Obstacle: Executive Ego

The big obstacle is ego. Many nonprofit executive directors are accustomed to celebrating bigger budgets, larger staff numbers, and recording outputs. But organizations structured this way tend to have relatively little impact in the community, especially per dollar spent.

I've watched executive directors resist letting go of programs that don't align with their mission simply because releasing those programs would mean:

• A smaller budget line on their annual report
• Fewer staff to manage
• Less impressive numbers when networking with peers
• Admitting they can't do everything well

The nonprofit sector has created perverse incentives where organizational size matters more than organizational effectiveness. We reward growth over impact. We celebrate expansion over focus. We measure success by budget increases rather than outcome improvements.

What Effective Organizations Do Differently

Organizations that learned to talk about outcomes, that tell compelling and empathetic but also data driven stories, are highly effective and great partners.

These organizations:

• Define clear outcomes: Not "we served 500 people" but "85% of participants retained employment for 12+ months"
• Focus ruthlessly: Excel at one or two programs rather than offering six mediocre ones
• Release misaligned work: Let other organizations run programs outside their core competency
• Measure what matters: Track life transformation, not just service delivery
• Tell honest stories: Share both successes and challenges with authentic data

When five focused, high-performing organizations collaborate, magic happens. Each brings distinct expertise. There's minimal overlap or competition. Partners can refer clients knowing they'll receive excellent specialized care. The collective impact far exceeds what any single organization could achieve.

Outputs vs. Outcomes: Understanding the Difference

Most failing collaborations obsess over outputs: people served, workshops delivered, meals distributed, referrals made. These numbers look impressive in grant reports. They're easy to count. They make board members feel good.

But outputs don't measure impact.

Outcomes measure transformation: households achieving financial stability, youth graduating high school, families escaping poverty, communities reducing crime rates, individuals maintaining sobriety.

An organization might serve 1,000 people annually (impressive output) while helping only 50 achieve lasting stability (weak outcome). Another organization might serve 200 people annually (modest output) while helping 170 achieve lasting stability (exceptional outcome).

Which organization deserves more funding? Which would make a better collaborative partner?

Yet the first organization often secures more support because it produces bigger numbers, manages more contracts, employs more staff, and appears more established. We've built a system that rewards activity over effectiveness.

What Successful Collaboration Actually Looks Like

I've built and supported numerous collaborative projects over two decades. The successful ones share common characteristics:

Clear role definition. Each partner knows exactly what they contribute and what they don't. There's no mission overlap or turf battles.

Complementary expertise. Partners bring different specialized skills. One excels at workforce training, another at housing navigation, another at mental health support. Together they address multiple barriers, but each focuses on their strength.

Shared outcome measures. Everyone agrees on what success looks like and tracks the same meaningful outcomes, not just their individual outputs.

Honest communication. Partners acknowledge when something isn't working and adjust. There's no pretending for the sake of maintaining relationships or protecting funding.

Ego-free leadership. Executive directors prioritize community impact over organizational empire building. They're willing to be smaller if it means being more effective.

The Path Forward for Your Organization

If you're considering collaboration, ask these questions first:

1. What are we truly excellent at? Not what we offer, but what we do measurably better than other organizations.
2. What programs should we release? Which services dilute our focus and would be better delivered by specialized partners?
3. Can we articulate our impact in one clear sentence? If not, we lack the focus necessary for effective collaboration.
4. Are we willing to be smaller to be better? If organizational size matters more than community impact, collaboration will fail.
5. Do we measure outcomes or just outputs? Can we demonstrate transformation, not just activity?

Honest answers to these questions determine collaboration readiness far better than enthusiasm, relationships, or funding opportunities.

A Call to Courageous Leadership

The nonprofit sector needs courageous leaders willing to prioritize impact over image, outcomes over outputs, and community benefit over organizational growth.

This means:

• Releasing programs that don't align with core mission, even if it means budget cuts
• Celebrating partners' successes rather than competing for credit
• Measuring what actually matters rather than what's easy to count
• Being smaller and more focused rather than larger and more scattered
• Telling honest stories about both successes and failures

It also means holding ourselves and our peers accountable. When an executive director brags about budget growth without demonstrating outcome improvements, ask the harder questions. When a collaboration forms around funding rather than community need, name that reality. When organizations refuse to release misaligned programs, acknowledge the ego protecting mediocrity.

Making Collaboration Work

Collaboration can transform communities. I've seen it work magnificently when organizations commit to the necessary prerequisites: focused mission, outcome measurement, complementary partnerships, ego-free leadership, and honest assessment.

But pretending collaboration will work without these elements wastes everyone's time and communities' limited resources. We can do better. We must do better.

The question isn't whether collaboration is valuable. It absolutely is. The question is whether we're willing to do the hard work of becoming the kind of organizations that can collaborate effectively.

That work starts with honest self assessment, continues with courageous leadership decisions, and culminates in organizations lean enough, focused enough, and effective enough to be truly excellent partners.

Are you ready to lead your organization toward that kind of excellence? Strategic planning and organizational development services can help you assess your current state, identify your core strengths, and build the focused, outcome-driven organization that creates real community impact.