Why is it important for organizations to work together? What are the different ways that organizations can work together? How do we choose among relationships? What are some of the challenges that organizations confront when they are working together? How do groups begin to build organizational relationships? Why is it important for organizations to work together? Community challenges are often too complex for any one organization to address alone. Issues related to education, employment, housing, health, the environment, public safety, and community well-being are often connected and shaped by many different systems and conditions. Organizations also bring different strengths to the table. One may have strong relationships with residents, another may have specialized expertise, another may have funding or facilities, and another may have authority to change policies or systems. When organizations and community members combine these resources thoughtfully, they may be able to accomplish more together than they could separately. This section is about organizations working together to accomplish shared goals. By networking, coordinating, cooperating, and collaborating, organizations can share information, reduce gaps and duplication, strengthen services, expand community participation, and work on challenges that require action across multiple organizations or sectors. Working together can also broaden participation in community decision-making. Strong partnerships create opportunities for residents, organizations, institutions, businesses, and public agencies to contribute different kinds of knowledge and help shape decisions that affect their communities. What could your organization accomplish by working together with others? What are the different ways that organizations can work together? Organizations can develop many different kinds of working relationships. Some relationships focus mainly on sharing information. Others involve adjusting activities, sharing resources, or jointly planning and implementing work. No one type of relationship is always best. The appropriate approach depends on what the organizations hope to accomplish, the resources available, the level of trust among partners, and how much responsibility and decision-making they are prepared to share. Networking Organizations have a networking relationship when they exchange information in ways that help each organization do its work more effectively. For example, if a school and a community counseling center share current information about services available to young people, that is a form of networking. If community organizations share calendars of public events, they may be able to avoid scheduling conflicts and identify opportunities to support one another. Networking generally requires less time and formal commitment than the other relationships described below, but it can still produce meaningful results. Networking can also be a starting point for deeper relationships. For example, staff members from several nonprofit organizations might begin meeting regularly to exchange information about funding opportunities. As relationships develop, they may discover shared priorities and decide to work together on projects that benefit their organizations and the broader community. Organizations can network in many ways, including meetings, community events, shared email lists or online workspaces, professional networks, conferences, and informal conversations. Coordination Organizations have a coordinating relationship when they adjust their activities so that services, programs, or resources work better together. For example, a school and community counseling center might coordinate schedules so that counseling is available at times when young people can use it. Community organizations might coordinate major events to reduce scheduling conflicts. Health and human service organizations might create referral procedures so participants do not have to repeatedly navigate disconnected systems. Coordination can reduce service gaps and unnecessary duplication. It can also make programs easier for community members to use. For example, students transferring from a two-year college to a four-year institution may face unnecessary delays if course requirements are poorly aligned. Similarly, people seeking health or social services may face barriers if several organizations require them to repeat the same eligibility or intake processes. Coordination requires more communication, planning, and trust than simple networking, but it can significantly improve participants' experiences and the effectiveness of community services. Cooperation When organizations cooperate, they go beyond exchanging information and coordinating activities. They also share resources to help accomplish common goals. Organizations may share staff time, volunteers, expertise, facilities, equipment, funding, technology, transportation, or other resources. For example, a school might provide space for a community counseling organization to offer evening services, while the counseling organization provides trained staff and resources. Cooperation requires organizations to share some responsibility and decision-making. Partners need clear expectations about what each will contribute, how resources will be used, and how credit and accountability will be shared. Collaboration Collaboration involves organizations working together in ways that strengthen their collective ability to achieve shared goals. Partners may jointly plan programs, pursue funding, share expertise, develop new approaches, or build one another's capacity. For example, a school and community counseling center might jointly seek funding to train staff from both organizations. Several community organizations might jointly design and host an event that advances a shared community priority. Collaboration usually involves greater shared responsibility, decision-making, risk, and accountability than networking, coordination, or cooperation. Partners need to be clear about roles, resources, power, expectations, and how decisions will be made. Strong collaborations also share recognition. When a successful project involves several partners, communications with funders, media, and community members should accurately acknowledge the contributions of everyone involved. Collaboration can require substantial time and trust, but it can also create opportunities to address challenges that individual organizations cannot solve on their own. Multisector collaboration Multisector collaboration brings together organizations and community members from different parts of the community, such as public agencies, businesses, schools, health systems, nonprofit organizations, neighborhood groups, and resident-led organizations. These collaborations are often used to address complex community issues that involve several systems at once. Examples may include improving access to health care, expanding affordable housing, strengthening educational and employment opportunities, improving transportation, supporting young people's development, or addressing environmental conditions. For example, community organizations, schools, young people, employers, workforce programs, and local government might work together to expand employment and career opportunities for young people. Schools and youth organizations could bring knowledge about young people's interests and experiences; employers could identify career pathways and skills needed in local industries; workforce organizations could provide training and support; and young people could help shape the opportunities so that they are relevant and accessible. Multisector collaboration is more complex than many other organizational relationships because partners may have different responsibilities, resources, priorities, cultures, and levels of influence. Effective collaboration does not require organizations to abandon their own missions, but it does require them to identify meaningful shared goals and decide how responsibility and decision-making will be distributed. Building trust and agreement may take considerable time. Partners should also pay attention to differences in power and resources so that smaller organizations, community-based groups, and residents are not invited only to provide input while institutions with greater resources make the final decisions. At its best, multisector collaboration gives community members meaningful roles alongside organizations and institutions in shaping decisions that affect their communities. How do you choose among relationships? Networking, coordinating, cooperating, collaboration, and multisector collaboration accomplish different things and require different levels of time, trust, skills, staffing, shared decision-making, and financial resources. Choose a relationship that fits what you are actually trying to accomplish. More intensive collaboration is not automatically better. Sometimes organizations only need to exchange information or coordinate schedules. In other situations, shared planning, resources, and decision-making may be necessary. Organizational relationships can also develop over time. Groups may begin by networking, build trust through successful coordination or cooperation, and later decide that deeper collaboration would be useful. As you choose an appropriate relationship, consider: What does each organization or community partner hope to accomplish by working together? What kind of relationship is actually necessary to accomplish those goals? What resources are available, including staff time, skills, funding, facilities, technology, relationships, and community knowledge? Is there sufficient trust and commitment for the level of partnership being considered? How will decisions, responsibilities, resources, and credit be shared? Are there differences in organizational power, funding, or influence that need to be addressed? How will community members affected by the work participate in decisions? Does the partnership have enough capacity to follow through on the commitments it is making? What are some of the challenges that organizations confront when they are working together? Working together can produce significant benefits, but organizational relationships also take time and effort. Partners may have different goals, histories, cultures, resources, expectations, and decision-making processes. Recognizing these challenges early can help groups prepare for them. Organizations may be accustomed to working independently Organizations often develop their own programs, funding sources, procedures, relationships, and areas of responsibility. Working with others may require staff to spend additional time communicating, adjusting plans, or sharing decisions that were previously made internally. Partners should be clear about what they gain from working together and which parts of their work should remain independent. Collaboration should add value rather than becoming an expectation that every organization must participate in every decision or activity. Trust may be limited or may need to be rebuilt Trust cannot be assumed. Organizations or communities may have histories of competition, broken commitments, exclusion, unequal partnerships, poor communication, or experiences in which information was gathered but community input did not influence decisions. Building trust requires consistent follow-through, transparency, accountability, honest communication, and time. When trust has been damaged, acknowledging what happened and changing the practices that caused the problem may be necessary before a stronger relationship can develop. Partners may need stronger communication and facilitation practices Working across several organizations makes communication more complex. People may use different terminology, decision-making styles, timelines, communication methods, or expectations. Clear agendas, accessible information, active listening, facilitation, written agreements, regular updates, and opportunities to clarify misunderstandings can help groups communicate more effectively. Racism, discrimination, and unequal power can affect organizational relationships Historical and ongoing racism, classism, ableism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination can shape relationships among communities and institutions. These issues should not be reduced to simple misunderstandings between individuals. Partners may need to examine how resources, authority, representation, and decision-making power are distributed within the relationship. Organizations should also learn about relevant community histories and understand how previous experiences with institutions may affect trust. Cultural differences in communication, leadership, decision-making, time, conflict, and relationship-building may also influence collaboration. Cultural humility, respectful curiosity, and ongoing learning can help partners work across differences without expecting one group to adapt entirely to another's norms. Leadership may be unclear or concentrated in too few people Collaborative work needs leadership, but effective leadership does not always mean one person directing everyone else. Depending on the partnership, leadership may be shared among organizations, residents, staff, and other participants. Strong collaborative leadership helps create clarity, facilitate participation, manage conflict, maintain accountability, share information, and keep the group connected to its purpose. It also creates opportunities for new leaders to emerge rather than concentrating authority in the same people throughout the life of the partnership. Past exclusion may affect people's willingness or ability to participate People who have repeatedly been excluded from decisions, invited only after major choices have already been made, or asked for input without seeing any response may reasonably question whether participation will matter. The solution is not simply to encourage people to speak up. Organizations should create meaningful roles, share decision-making power, provide accessible ways to participate, communicate how input is used, remove practical barriers such as transportation or scheduling, and compensate community members when substantial participation requires significant time or expertise. Funders may require collaboration Funders sometimes encourage or require organizations to collaborate. This can create useful opportunities, but a funding requirement alone does not create a strong partnership. Organizations should be realistic about whether the proposed relationship makes sense, what each partner can contribute, and how decisions will be shared. When possible, partners and funders should allow enough time for relationships, roles, and agreements to develop rather than assuming that collaboration begins as soon as a grant is awarded. How do groups begin to build organizational relationships? The following guidelines can help organizations begin developing relationships that are useful, respectful, and sustainable. Involve the stakeholders Identify the people and organizations affected by the work or able to contribute useful knowledge, resources, or decision-making authority. Stakeholders may include organizational leaders, staff responsible for implementation, program participants, residents, community-based organizations, public agencies, businesses, funders, and others affected directly or indirectly. Meaningful involvement can take different forms. Some people may participate in ongoing planning and decision-making, while others may contribute through advisory groups, listening sessions, surveys, interviews, or specific project roles. Participation should be more than symbolic. People should understand what decisions are open to their influence, how their input will be used, and where decision-making authority ultimately rests. For example, if several organizations are working together to expand counseling hours for young people, planning could involve counselors, young people, parents or caregivers, school staff, community organizations, and others who understand how the service is currently used and what barriers exist. Establish one-to-one relationships, and begin to build trust Organizational relationships are built partly through relationships among the people representing each organization. People who will share information, resources, responsibility, or risk need opportunities to understand one another's roles, perspectives, and expectations. Relationship building might happen through individual conversations, small-group meetings, community events, retreats, informal gatherings, or facilitated discussions. Whatever method you use, make sure to: Allow enough time for relationships to develop. Urgency may be real, but trying to force trust can create additional problems. Give participants opportunities to explain their organization, community connections, interest in the work, priorities, concerns, and expectations for the partnership. Establish expectations for honesty, confidentiality when appropriate, respectful communication, and accountability. Establish a tone of cooperation while allowing organizations to be transparent about areas where their interests may differ. Strengthen communication, facilitation, and conflict-resolution skills as needed. Trust should continue to be attended to throughout the relationship. Successful work can strengthen trust, while missed commitments, exclusion from decisions, or poor communication can weaken it. When trust is damaged, address the issue directly rather than assuming it will resolve itself. Clarify the goals each organization wants to accomplish Each organization should clarify why it wants to participate, how it understands the issue, what outcomes it hopes to achieve, what resources it can contribute, and what limitations or concerns it has. Partners should then identify where their goals overlap and where important differences remain. A strong partnership does not require everyone to have identical priorities. Decide on an organizational relationship that makes sense Once goals, resources, responsibilities, and expectations are clearer, decide what type of relationship fits the work. Partners may only need to network or coordinate, or they may decide that cooperation or collaboration is necessary. Avoid creating a more complicated partnership structure than the goal requires. Establish procedural ground rules Early in the relationship, establish clear agreements for important procedures, such as: How decisions will be made Who will communicate publicly or speak to the media What information should remain confidential and what information can be shared How information will be distributed The responsibilities and authority of representatives How resources, expenses, and credit will be shared How disagreements and conflicts will be addressed How community members and other partners will participate in decisions Any other procedures needed to support transparency and accountability Clarifying these expectations early can prevent misunderstandings. Important decisions should not be made informally by a small subset of partners when others who share decision-making authority have not had an opportunity to participate. Learn how to listen Listening is essential to organizational relationships. Partners need opportunities to explain what matters to them -- their goals, experiences, knowledge, concerns, and ideas -- and to know that others are considering what they say. Listening does not require agreement. It requires enough attention and curiosity to understand another person's perspective before responding. Groups can build listening into their meetings by making space for people who speak less often, using small-group discussions, providing several ways to contribute, summarizing what has been heard, and checking whether people believe their views have been represented accurately. Build on points of agreement Partners do not need to agree on every issue. Identify areas of shared purpose and determine whether useful work can begin there. If organizations cannot agree on an entire strategy, they may be able to agree on a smaller project, shared principle, or first step. Successful work on one area can provide information and experience that helps partners decide whether deeper cooperation makes sense. Do not treat disagreement as something that always needs to be eliminated. Differences can reveal overlooked concerns, competing priorities, or unintended effects that improve the final approach when they are taken seriously. Practice cultural humility and learn about relevant histories When organizations work across differences in race, ethnicity, culture, language, religion, socioeconomic background, disability, geography, or other experiences, partners may benefit from learning about one another's communities, histories, values, and organizational practices. This includes understanding how discrimination, exclusion, disinvestment, or previous relationships with institutions may shape trust and expectations in the present. Cultural learning should not require people to disclose painful experiences or speak for an entire community. Partners can use facilitated discussions, community histories, training, cultural events, and other approaches to strengthen understanding while respecting participants' boundaries. The goal is not to erase differences but to build relationships in which differences can be discussed respectfully and taken into account when decisions are made. Don't require organizations to give up their identities Each organization has its own mission, relationships, culture, and responsibilities. Working together should not require every partner to become the same or give up what makes its work distinctive. Partners should be clear about which responsibilities will be shared and which will remain with individual organizations. Expect problems and disagreements -- and have patience Setbacks and disagreements are normal in organizational relationships. When they occur, create space to understand the concern, determine what needs to change, and decide together how to move forward. Avoid minimizing disagreements simply for the sake of maintaining harmony. Some conflicts reveal important problems related to decision-making, resources, representation, workload, or trust and should be addressed directly. Celebrate progress, large and small Recognizing progress can help partners maintain energy and connection over time. Celebrations may be informal or formal depending on the group -- a shared meal, recognition at a meeting, a community event, or simply taking time to acknowledge what participants have accomplished together. Make sure recognition reflects the contributions of organizations, staff, volunteers, residents, and community partners whose work made the progress possible. In Summary Organizations can often accomplish more when they build thoughtful relationships with others. Networking, coordination, cooperation, collaboration, and multisector collaboration offer different ways to share information, align activities, combine resources, strengthen capacity, and work toward shared community goals. Strong partnerships require more than bringing organizations into the same room. They depend on trust, clear goals, shared expectations, communication, appropriate distribution of responsibility and decision-making power, attention to inequities among partners, and meaningful participation from people affected by the work. Organizations do not need to agree on everything or give up their individual identities in order to work together. By identifying areas of shared purpose, listening across differences, addressing conflict openly, and building relationships over time, partners can develop approaches that draw on the strengths and knowledge of the broader community. Contributor Marya Axner Resources Print Resources Brown, R. (1984). The art of coalition building: A guide for community leaders. New York, NY: The American Jewish Committee. Chrislip, D., & Larson, E. (1994). Collaborative leadership: How citizens and civic leaders can make a difference. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Gray, B. (1991). Collaborating: Finding common ground for multiparty problems. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Himmelman, A. (1992). Communities working collaboratively for a change. Minneapolis, MN: The Himmelman Consulting Group.
