The Collaboration Challenge: How Nonprofits and Businesses Succeed Through Strategic Alliances [Hardcover]

James E. Austin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787952206 | ISBN-13: 978-0787952204 | Publication Date: April 2000 | Edition: 1

Presented by The Drucker Foundation

"Austin has uncovered the common elements and key strategies that make for effective collaborations.... In The Collaboration Challenge, he illuminates these key lessons for all leaders, and makes it possible for each of us to meet the collaboration challenge."
--Frances Hesselbein, chairman of the board of governors, The Drucker Foundation, and John C. Whitehead, founder, The John C. Whitehead Fund for Not-for-Profit Management, Harvard Business School

"Austin has performed a valuable service for nonprofit organizations and their corporate partners by illuminating the dynamics of successful relationships. His useful book deserves to be widely read by leaders in both sectors concerned about increasing the effectiveness of their social action agenda."
--Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, author of World Class and Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the Frontiers of Management

"The entire nonprofit sector has been searching for the expertise and tools this book provides. Nothing else like it exists."
--Bill Shore, executive director of Share-Our-Strength and author of The Cathedral Within and Revolution of the Heart

In these complex times, when no organization can succeed alone, nonprofits and businesses are embracing collaboration for mutual benefits. Nonprofits are partnering with businesses to further their missions, develop resources, strengthen programs, and thrive in the competitive world. Companies are also discovering that alliances with nonprofits generate significant rewards: increased customer preference, improved employee morale, greater brand identity, stronger corporate culture, and higher innovation.

In this timely and insightful book, James E. Austin provides a practical framework for understanding how traditional philanthropic relationships can be transformed into powerful strategic alliances. He offers advice and lessons drawn from the experiences of numerous collaborations, including Timberland and City Year; Starbucks and CARE; Georgia-Pacific and The Nature Conservancy; MCI WorldCom and The National Geographic Society; Reebok and Amnesty International; and Hewlett-Packard and the National Science Resource Center. Readers will learn how to:
* Find and connect with high-potential partners
* Ensure strategic fit with the partner's mission and values
* Generate greater value for each partner and society
* Manage the partnering relationship effectively

Click here to read Chapter 8, Guidelines for Collaborating Successfully.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Already this year, in Common Interest, Common Good: Creating Value through Business and Social Sector Partnerships, Shirley Sagawa and Eli Segal outlined the benefits of partnerships between businesses and nonprofit organizations. There they profiled seven successful examples of such relationships. Now Austin, author of numerous books on business and management in developing countries and a business professor at Harvard, makes his own similar case in this Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management Leaderbook. He identifies major alliances and examines how they function, looking at the various stages through which they must pass. He explains the role of top leadership and emphasizes the importance of a strategic "fit" between the two partners. Austin suggests different areas within organizations for alignment as well as ways for partners to analyze the value of their collaboration. He then considers ongoing practical management issues and concludes with guidelines for collaborations and questions that must be addressed. David Rouse

Review

"Austin has uncovered the common elements and key strategies that make for effective collaborations.... He gained unprecedented access to the decision makers who instituted and managed these alliances and who provide firsthand accounts of their successes, trials, and lessons learned.... In The Collaboration Challenge, he illuminates these key lessons for all leaders, and makes it possible for each of us to meet the collaboration challenge." ---Frances Hesselbein, , chairman of the board of governors, The Drucker Foundation, and John C. Whitehead, founder, The John C. Whitehead Fund for Not-for-Profit Management, Harvard Business School

"Austin has performed a valuable service for nonprofit organizations and their corporate partners by illuminating the dynamics of successful relationships. His useful book deserves to be widely read by leaders in both sectors concerned about increasing the effectiveness of their social action agenda." ---Rosabeth Moss Kanter, , Harvard Business School, author of World Class and Rosabeth Moss Kanter on the Frontiers of Management

"The entire nonprofit sector has been searching for the expertise and tools this book provides. Nothing else like it exists." -Bill Shore, executive director of Share-Our-Strength and author of The Cathedral Within and Revolution of the Heart

"It's hard to imagine managers crafting a leading partnership and not applying all this book has to offer. It does a fantastic job in offering leaders crisp principles to be applied in navigating the landscape of collaborations." -Ken Freitas, vice president of social enterprise, Timberland Company

"Superbly provides a framework of order and understanding. I wish I had had this book to share with staff and board members during my tenure at Outward Bound. It will accelerate the coming together of the sectors." -Allen Grossman, Bloomberg Senior Lecturer in Philanthropy, Harvard University, and former CEO of Outward Bound

"The book provides wonderful case studies, strong insights, and solid frameworks that I plan to use in my own nonprofit course next year." -Marc Lindenberg, dean and professor, Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington, and former senior vice president of CARE

"A very timely book of landmark collaborations between nonprofits and businesses set within conceptual frameworks that provide both academics and practitioners guidance on how to make alliances better." -Alan R. Andreasen, professor of marketing, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, and author of Marketing Social Change

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (April 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787952206
• ISBN-13: 978-0787952204
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #20 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Strategy & Competition
  • #79 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Nonprofit Organizations & Charities

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Review in Foundation News & Commentary, November 15, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Collaboration Challenge: How Nonprofits and Businesses Succeed Through Strategic Alliances (Hardcover)

Foundation News and Commentary
July/August 2001
Vol. 42, No. 4

Review by Beth Brown

We all want to partner. We all speak of collaborative spirit. But when the rubber meets the road, what does collaboration really entail, and what's the difference between a deal and an alliance?

James Austin breaks down the notion of collaboration into a must-read users guide for any organizational leader embarking on a collaboration. And although the book is geared toward corporations and their nonprofit partners, many of the lessons are universal and can be applied to any individual or organization considering a joint venture, be it a marriage or cross-sector alliance.

Austin notes the role serendipity and personal relationships plays in introducing partnerships-a conversation in a coffee shop or during a long plane ride-often sparking the "ah-ha" moment leading to the realization that a corporation and a nonprofit have what Austin calls mission mesh. The organizations' leaders can see how their visions' core competencies can make a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Through in-depth and candid examples from partnerships, including those between Starbucks and CARE, Timberland and City Year, and American Eagle Outfitters and Jumpstart, Austin chronicles the necessary, and often awkward, stages businesses and nonprofits pass through in order to become strategic partners.

Austin has a healthy skepticism for the ease of collaboration. He often likens it to dating, and as with a courting pair from different countries, he sees the cultural and values barriers between the sectors as the greatest obstacle to collaboration. The corporate leaders he interviews are open about the fact that their bottom line is to make a profit and a partnership can often assist their public relations efforts.

For the nonprofits, there is greater accountability held when working with corporations, and sometimes the social value nonprofits generate is not easily quantifiable. In addition, each can be associated with the mistakes of the other. However, the payoff is that one can also be associated with the success of the other and be exposed to new audiences-potential customers for the business, future partners for the nonprofit.

One interesting observation Austin makes is the inherent noncollaborative nature of a philanthropic relationship (it is the lowest on the collaborative totem poll). Although he does not single out foundations, he characterizes the giving of money by one organization to another as an exchange of resources for warm fuzzy feelings. Among philanthropic relationships, the venture philanthropy approach seems to offer a model of partnership similar in the level of engagement to the examples mentioned in Austin's book.

The details from the examples and extensive quotes of philanthropic and business leaders, such as Aaron Lieberman of Jumpstart and Jeff Swartz of Timberland, give the reader an insider's view of what went into the partnership. At the same time, the book is filled with simple big-picture truths such as "serious relationships, organizational and interpersonal, should not be rushed." That's a helpful notion to remember with everyone so eager to jump on the partnership bandwagon. Austin reminds us that having and keeping a partnership is not the end all-adding value is the goal and sustainability does not necessarily equal effectiveness.

Austin's greatest contributions to fostering collaboration are the tools the book includes: questions, checklists, continuums-cheat sheets for collaboration-that would be an asset to any leader considering partnership. In addressing the questions he poses, Austin leads potential collaborators through the development of a partnership purpose.

The final chapter of the book contains a complete conceptual framework for collaboration that seems universally applicable to any partnership. These "Seven C's of Collaboration" include Connection with Purpose and People, Clarity of Purpose, Congruency of Mission, Creation of Value, Communication Between Partners, Continual Learning, and Commitment to the Partnership.

So let's all take a cross-sector breath before claiming our next partner and take the messages of James Austin's book to heart and practice.

---------
Beth Brown is the director of Public Policy and Emerging Issues at the Council on Foundations.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and practical., January 9, 2001

By 

Patrick C. OReilly (San Francisco, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Collaboration Challenge: How Nonprofits and Businesses Succeed Through Strategic Alliances (Hardcover)

This is timely management book should be read by all those interested in leading, or advocating, a strategic alliance between a business and a non-profit, or by those who are already involved in such an alliance.

The issues covered by the book are very topical. Strategic alliances have become increasingly important to organizational survival. In addition, some organizations, including businesses, recognize that, for the long haul, they need to be in closer harmony with deeper aspirations of their customers, employees and shareholders. Others oppose such approaches as a dangerous temptation to fuzzy thinking and conflicted agendas. Yet others view the non-economic motives of their constituents as only relevant to marketing campaigns or high-minded mission statements.

This practical book addresses these opportunities and challenges systematically and with insight. It doesn't push quick fixes or high-risk strategies, but rather presents processes and analytical frameworks that support sequential acts of collaboration.

The author is a good teacher and effectively uses case studies to support his recommendations. His approach is practical and recognizes the reality that every relationship involves an exchange of value. His emphasis is on having clear agendas and then searching together for common outcomes built around relative strengths.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good to start your mind thikning, lots of reading, but not ground breaking, April 17, 2007

By 

Janis Lanka "janislanka" (Latvia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Collaboration Challenge: How Nonprofits and Businesses Succeed Through Strategic Alliances (Hardcover)

Issue of non profit organizations and business partnership is discussed from perspective of what strategies and knowledge is necessary to achieve effective collaboration. Author leads through stages of developing this collaborative partnership and provides tools to measure both success and its potential.

I wish author would include more material on collaboration for companies from similar industry. In order to get a broader understanding of other type of partnerships, one chapter about that would have been a good idea to include in the next book revisions.