These efforts are well-meant and often urgently needed, but experience and research have long shown that collaboration is not without its challenges (see, for example, Bailey and Koney, 1995; Kagan, Rivera, & Parker, 1990; Kohm, 1998; La Piaña, 1997; Mattessich and Monsey, 1992; Melaville and Blank, 1991; Mulroy, 1996; Seaburn, Lorenz, Gunn, Gawinski, & Mauksch, 1996; Winer and Ray, 1994). These challenges include building trust, navigating turf issues, developing a shared vision, creating a sense of inclusiveness, resolving conflicts, sustaining the effort beyond an immediate crisis, and supporting implementation at all levels of the collaborating organizations. In this paper, we suggest that nonprofit management support organizations (MSOs) can help with these challenges. Described simply, MSOs are local nonprofits that provide support to other nonprofits through training and consulting on such issues as leadership, planning, fundraising, marketing, and human resource development. However, their purpose and standing in the community can vary widely from these core tasks.

Our research suggests that MSOs are in a unique position to convene, facilitate, and sustain community collaborations and should consider making this role a central function of their mission. Other research supports this notion. Seaburn, et al. (1996) finds that the initiator of collaboration "is often a systems thinker . . . and is often the one who fosters relationships" (p. 54). Similarly, MSOs are usually systems-focused organizations, already skilled with issues of systemic change, strategic planning, and facilitation. Lansley (1996) upholds the idea of combining nonprofit support and community facilitation in his study in Britain of a similar “intermediary body” to MSOs—the Council for Voluntary Service (CVS). In his description, the CVS provides management training to nongovernmental organizations, coordinates efforts between NGOs and government, and ensures that the voluntary sector is effectively represented in joint planning among all three sectors.

MSOs are also perhaps most familiar with the broader context in which organizations operate (Vinokur-Kaplan and Connor, 1998) and with the changing community dynamics resulting from a blurring of the sectors. For instance, although traditionally focused on the nonprofit sector, MSOs increasingly find themselves working with governmental agencies, either in a management support capacity or in a partnership to help other nonprofits. MSOs are also sensitive to the principles and practices of the business sector as they help nonprofits adopt best business practices and maintain good relationships with the business community. Thus, MSOs seem well-prepared to assist with collaborative efforts across the sectors.

In this article, we will present several case studies of the work of one MSO—Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW)—to take on this role. NEW has spent the last several years working with and examining collaborations in Washtenaw County, Michigan, an area with a mix of rural and urban settings which includes NEW’s home-base, the small city of Ann Arbor. NEW has approached the promotion of collaboration from the perspective outlined by O'Looney (1996): "(1) that the process of collaboration will lead to system change, (2) that system change has both a social service integration component and a community capacity component, and (3) when services are integrated and communities are more organized, one can expect to begin to see changes in the lives of families and children" (p. 15). Our case studies of NEW's work provide examples of two types of integration defined by O'Looney: "program-centered" integration (in which agencies collaborate around service delivery and program administration) and "policy-centered" integration (through which higher-level decision makers engage in needs assessments, priority setting, allocative judgments, and monitoring of the whole system). We will explore how an MSO can assist both types of integration, and we will conclude with our thoughts about the challenges of continuing this work and the considerations that other MSOs/communities will need to keep in mind when pursuing this approach.

Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW)
NEW is a nonprofit management support organization that provides training, consulting, and information services to the nonprofit sector and the larger community of southeastern Michigan. NEW, a nonprofit itself, was created in 1993 to manage the NEW Center--a facility that provides affordable office space and shared office equipment for nonprofits. But NEW's purpose has expanded beyond its "landlord" role as the need for additional management support services has become more apparent.

NEW's financial viability depends on earned revenue from fees for services and on foundation, corporate, and individual contributions. NEW is not a membership organization, is not funded by the United Way, and provides no funding to nonprofits aside from scholarships for its services. Also, in order to avoid competing with the nonprofits it serves, NEW makes an effort to bring new funding sources to the community for its work, looking to foundations that do not normally support southeast Michigan and/or do not provide funds for direct-service programs. Thus, NEW is able to maintain a relatively neutral stance in the community in relation to other nonprofits, government agencies, and funders. At the same time, NEW has a mission and focus to enhance the quality of life in the community by helping nonprofits succeed. This mission, combined with a neutral positioning, has enabled NEW to successfully encourage, foster, and report on community collaborative efforts. Leaders and concerned citizens in the community have begun to see this potentiality and look to NEW to be a convener and facilitator.

One of NEW's more recently developed management support services, the Nonprofit Consulting Consortium, has been central to its work with collaboratives. The Consortium--begun three years ago with the help of a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation--is a network of professional consultants whose typical work is to provide nonprofits with intensive, on-site assistance to address a variety of management challenges. NEW staff provide the marketing, matchmaking, and administrative support for these consulting projects. They also screen and add consultants to the Consortium as the demand for services grows and diversifies. None of the consultants are permanent, paid employees of NEW, which allows a flexibility in the number and nature of the consulting projects. Through this program, NEW has been able to staff, support, and study projects involving collaborations among nonprofit agencies and across sectors. Information about NEW and the case studies presented here was gathered when two of the authors were employed at NEW and involved in observation of cases in action and discussions with NEW consultants.

NEW has worked with three different, yet overlapping, collaboratives which have informed our perspective that this role can be a valuable and appropriate one for an MSO: the Community Agenda group, the WISH Collaborative, and the Continuum of Care prioritizing process.

Community Agenda
NEW's work with collaborations began in the fall of 1996 when it convened a group of socially concerned community representatives. The Community Agenda--as this group became known--represents all sectors of the community; membership is voluntary, and anyone is welcome at the table. The collaborative is informal in that it has no official status or by-laws, will not seek its own funding, and plans to phase itself out when no longer needed. The group includes county and city administrators, the Chamber of Commerce president, directors of the local United Way and Community Foundation, leaders from the huge University of Michigan, heads of the major health centers, business owners, nonprofit board members, union leaders, bank presidents, and community volunteers. Initial meetings to discuss services in the community inevitably came around to discussions of resources. The Community Agenda has expressed its primary question of concern as follows: "What resources are needed in our area to sustain fundamental improvements in service delivery?"

This group's ultimate goal is to organize work within nonprofits and across the various sectors so that the community can move systemically toward lasting change (as opposed to responding in a haphazard fashion to each emerging crisis). With such a systemic plan and agreed upon outcomes, the distribution of available resources--from local government, corporate and foundation philanthropy, and individual gifts--can then be guided by collaborative wisdom, like a kind of portfolio of investments in community efforts. The members realize that getting to this new reality will require collaboration at all levels as well as a better understanding of immediate realities (e.g., how are our citizens currently faring?, what are nonprofits currently doing?, what funding is currently available?).

Inherent in NEW's mission to help nonprofits succeed is a concurrence with these priorities. Like the Community Agenda, NEW believes that collaboration, careful use of resources, and attention to outcomes will improve the work of the nonprofit sector and strengthen the community. In order to support and focus the efforts of the Community Agenda, NEW developed its 1997 annual conference around the topic of outcomes measurement and evaluation for nonprofits. The conference attracted a wide array of community members to hear Connie Revell, of Oregon Options, discuss state-wide, collaborative efforts in Oregon to develop and work toward a set of desired outcomes for the lives of children and families. After the conference, NEW talked with the Community Agenda about using the Consulting Consortium to examine how outcomes-based collaboration can work in the community and to gather some of the necessary benchmarking data. As a result of these discussions, it was decided that NEW would undertake a study of one effort in the county to reorganize work and resources in order to promote better outcomes for services (in this case, to the homeless). That effort is called the WISH Collaborative.

The WISH Collaborative
Over the past few years, a collaboration has developed among seven separate human service agencies in Washtenaw County. Known as WISH (the Washtenaw Integrated Supported Housing project), it came about as an effort to fundamentally change the way homelessness is addressed in the county. Its member organizations all assist people in making the transition from homelessness to supported independent living. The collaborative is intended to address the diverse needs of homeless individuals (for job skills, life skills, stable housing, transportation, substance abuse treatment, and more) by integrating services and sharing resources across partner agencies and emphasizing self-determination by participants. This approach allows a more holistic intervention for serving individuals whose past experiences with human service agencies have been piecemeal and often ineffective.

NEW was asked by the Community Agenda to examine the efforts of WISH as a case study of whether and how collaboration within this community can sustain high-quality nonprofit services and their positive outcomes (including improved quality of life for clients and cost savings for the community). WISH members also agreed to the study in order to learn more about their own process and results. The study was funded partly through the Washtenaw County government and partly through NEW's consulting scholarship funds.

The researcher/consultants assigned to this project understood the purpose of their work to be twofold: to explore what WISH had learned about the collaborative process, and to find out whether WISH is successful in serving its clients. The consultants came to describe their study as an evaluation of WISH on behalf of a "constituency continuum"--from clients to service providers to agency executives to funders to society as a whole. In these ways, the study itself pushed forward the collaborative agenda by bringing diverse resources to the work and by recognizing a community-wide audience for the results.

Much of what the consultants learned and reported about their study of WISH highlights the ongoing challenges of agency collaboration and outcomes measurement (Final Technical Report, 1998; Preliminary Lessons, 1998). For example, efforts to benchmark WISH against integrated homelessness services in other communities came up mostly empty-handed; hard data on client outcomes and cost savings simply were not available. Findings about the outcomes of WISH itself were constrained by the measurement processes that have so far been used by the collaborative; the study found that the members of the collaborative were not implementing any routine or formal process for tracking individual client progress. Research to document the success of the collaboration itself was somewhat more successful, but evidence was mostly anecdotal. In focus groups and interviews, both WISH executives and WISH staff reported that they are more familiar with each others' agencies and services, that clients in the WISH program have been better able to access services, and that services to clients have increased without an apparent increase in administrative costs (although no independent data were available to confirm this).

The full results of this study of WISH were reported to the Community Agenda in the fall of 1998. Much of the consultants' recommendations relate to better ways of measuring and tracking data in order to document the value of WISH for all constituencies. At the same time, they offer WISH--and future collaboratives--a variety of suggestions for how to ease and strengthen the collaborative process. Thus, NEW's involvement with WISH, on behalf of the Community Agenda, uncovered important information about the current status of service delivery to the homeless and the distance that the community needs to go to develop outcomes standards and measure the successes of collaboration. As one consultant said in a post-study interview, "We now know better what the community wants to know and what the agencies can't yet tell us."

The project also taught NEW some important lessons about its own work with collaboration. Consultants spoke about the difficulties posed in doing a study on behalf of a “constituency continuum.” While the Community Agenda hoped to highlight some of the values of collaboration, the researchers needed to take a more objective view of WISH's work. They became confused at times as to whether they were simply assessors or were evaluators who made recommendations, and they emphasized the need to set clear goals at the beginning and re-visit these goals throughout the study. They also suggested that the ultimate value of this study may be more intangible than NEW had expected. Much of what they learned about collaboration from studying WISH could have been found in the literature, but these lessons take on greater power when gleaned from efforts in one's own community with its unique political and social structures. The study also gave a legitimacy to the efforts of the Community Agenda which may lead to increased involvement in local conversations about collaboration and outcomes. NEW's study of WISH has helped to focus attention on these issues and encourage new ways of thinking about effectiveness and efficiency among these agencies.

Continuum of Care
In the summer of 1998, NEW found itself involved with another community collaboration with a different goal but a similar focus. NEW was asked by city and county government to facilitate the Continuum of Care, a HUD-underwritten process to help communities identify gaps in services to the homeless, prioritize service delivery programs in need of funding, and recommend an allocation of federal resources. For the first time in Washtenaw County, this process was undertaken by a diverse "Community Board," developed and convened by NEW. The Board included leaders of several private nonprofits as well as representatives from city and county government, the University of Michigan School of Social Work, the local community foundation, the United Way, the public school district, and several businesses. The board reviewed and jointly ranked eight proposals for programs to serve the homeless.

Although they were able to complete the task as required by HUD, everyone on the Community Board expressed a desire to understand more about how these programs operate and to see concrete results of the services (Continuum of Care Narrative, 1998). Through the Continuum of Care process, NEW was further able to foster an understanding and engagement among the larger community around the value of outcomes measurement to collaborative processes and to fundamental changes in service delivery. In addition, the work of the Board was informed by NEW's growing understanding of collaboration due to its work with the Community Agenda and WISH. Efforts were made early in the process to ensure diverse representation, adequate background information, a clear charge for the collaborative, and outside facilitation.

Conclusions and Implications
These case studies indicate that an MSO like NEW can successfully assist, and help participants learn from, both program- and policy-centered integrations. These experiences also suggest that NEW could have done more to enhance these collaborations by finding ways to collect and share data about needs, services, and outcomes. It is clear that promoting systemic change through community-wide collaboration is not just a matter of getting the right people around the table to talk, but of ensuring that the information they need to make good decisions is available.

Not only do these facilitative and data gathering tasks help the community, but they also help the MSO meet other parts of its mission. These experiences enhanced NEW’s understanding of the nonprofit management needs in the county and of the government and business sectors’ views and expectations of the nonprofit sector. In addition, as a primary convener and facilitator in the community, NEW began to bring an ever-expanding base of understanding about collaborative processes and participants’ priorities to other management-focused tasks, such as assisting arts organizations in mapping the cultural services in the county. Likewise, if NEW were to take on more of a data gathering role, the knowledge it would accumulate over time about the social issues and efforts in the community would no doubt greatly inform its priorities for management assistance, resource leveraging, and new services.

While NEW’s work highlights how a nonprofit management support organization can successfully assist community collaborations, we recognize that MSOs in other communities will have to carefully consider their approach to this work and its implications. NEW’s experiences may not be easily generalizable to other areas of the country, given NEW’s particular characteristics and the composition of the county--small cities and towns dominated by university and high-tech jobs and populated by a highly educated citizenry. For some MSOs in other communities, neutrality may be compromised from the start if nonprofits pay to be members of the MSO or if the MSO is primarily supported by the United Way or other local funders that also support many other nonprofits. Neutrality can also become compromised over time as different sectors invite and/or fund the involvement of the MSO. NEW is already negotiating this issue as much of its collaborative focus has been aligned with city and county government agendas.

Similarly, MSOs will need to be aware of the risk of conflicts of interest between individual and collective goals. For example, collaborative ventures focused on outcomes for the total community may lead to decisions about resource allocation which could leave some nonprofits without funding to continue their work. Yet, if the MSO is still expected to be primarily a champion for the nonprofit sector, some community members may be unpleasantly surprised to find the MSO involved in decisions that negatively impact select nonprofits.

Despite these risks, we believe it is becoming increasingly necessary for MSOs to take on a role that engages and assists the larger community, if they are going to meet their mission of creating more effective and efficient nonprofits. Taking this a step further, we suggest that the nonprofit management support organization should focus not merely on specific nonprofit agencies as its customers, but, more importantly, on the "community as customer"—perhaps even changing its name to “community support organization.” With this recasting, the “CSO” could seek to build the social capital and community infrastructure that empowers citizens to take ownership of their service systems and ensures proper investment in making these services successful.

At the same time, we recognize that most communities do not already have an established MSO, but many are actively searching for strategies to strengthen nonprofits and improve community life. In this situation, if a support organization is being considered, we recommend a CSO model rather than an MSO model as a better response to today’s trends. Such an organization’s primary mission would be to build the capacity of all sectors to work together to solve social problems, rather than to build the capacity of individual organizations to stay afloat. Through researching social systems and best practices, disseminating information, convening intra- and inter-sectoral groups, facilitating collaborations, and reporting to funders and policy makers, a newly-created CSO will be able to have a positive impact not only on the work of the nonprofit sector but also on efforts to reach larger community goals. In fact, our commitment to the need for some organization in each community to do this necessary work has led us to our current research and consulting on how community support can be provided in a variety of locations. After all, the main goal for improving the work of nonprofit organizations is that they can better serve our communities. In today’s complex environment, community support may be the only approach that will truly support nonprofits in reaching their missions.

References

Bailey, D., & Koney, K. M. “Community-based consortia: One model for creation and development.” Journal of Community Practice, 1995, 2 (1), 21-42.

Continuum of Care Narrative. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Nonprofit Enterprise at Work, 1998.

Final technical report: WISH assessment project. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Nonprofit Enterprise at Work, 1998.

Kagan, S. L., Rivera, A. M., and Parker, F. L. Collaborations in action: Reshaping services for young children and their families. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy, 1990.

Kohm, A. “Cooperating to survive and thrive: Innovative enterprises among nonprofit organizations.” Nonprofit World, 1998, 16 (3), 36-44.

Lansley, J. “Intermediary bodies in the 1990s: New settings, old problems?” Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 1996, 7 (2), 169-180.

La Piaña, D. Beyond collaboration: Strategic restructuring of nonprofit organizations. San Francisco: The James Irvine Foundation, 1997.

Mattessich, P. W., and Monsey, B. R. Collaboration: What makes it work. St. Paul: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, 1992.

Melaville, A. I., and Blank, M. J. What it takes: Structuring interagency partnerships to connect children and families with comprehensive services. Washington, DC: Education and Human Services Consortium, 1991.

Mulroy, E. “Motivation and reward in nonprofit interorganizational collaboration in poverty neighborhoods.” Paper presented at the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, New York, November 7, 1996.

O'Looney, J. Redesigning the work of human services. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1996.

Preliminary lessons on collaboration: WISH assessment project. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Nonprofit Enterprise at Work, 1998.

Seaburn, D. B., Lorenz, A. D., Gunn, Jr., W. B., Gawinski, B. A., and Mauksch, L. B. Models of collaboration: A guide for mental health professionals working with health care practitioners. New York: Basic Books, 1996.

Vinokur-Kaplan, D., & Connor, J. A. “Nonprofit incubators: Comparative models for nurturing new third sector organizations.” Paper presented at the International Society for the Study of Third Sector Research, Geneva, Switzerland, July 8, 1998.

Winer, M., and Ray, K. Collaboration handbook: Creating, sustaining, and enjoying the journey. St. Paul: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, 1994.

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