How Can Collaborations Help in Research & Evaluation?

Hellen Keller once wrote “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Nonprofits are taking this adage to heart; those of the same vision are increasingly seeing the value of partnering up.  In 2015, the National Council on Nonprofits noted a trend in what they referred to as a sharing economy, where nonprofits are partnering in back office operations, space, administration functions, and even workers. These trends are expected to continue with fewer economic resources for smaller nonprofits and increased reporting requirements for funding.

One area that we haven’t heard much about but would seem to make the most sense of targeted collaboration would be in the areas of research and evaluation (R&E). Such a venture can help each partner save costs, strengthen programs, and improve efficiency by leveraging their mutual and complimentary experience, leadership, skills, and abilities.

But what would such R&E partnerships look like between nonprofits?

One of the easiest, mutually beneficial collaboratives would be conducting a needs assessment with others that have similar vision and beneficiaries (community, specific audience, etc.). Such a project would help nonprofits in close proximity to ensure that they do not offer redundant services and then find ways of partnering together on what is actually needed to serve the group. Partnership may include only the needs assessment or it may extend to carrying out the services themselves through joint planning, workers, evaluation, etc.

Another way that nonprofits can collaborate on R&E is through determining key questions for program design and sharing the expenses and resources to carry out qualitative research.  One nonprofit may not have the resources to carry out a project like this, but in partnership with another they could.  Each partner would then be able to better design their programs based on quality research.

Programs that have similar services and intended outcomes could also benefit from similar monitoring and evaluation processes. It is possible to create data collection tools that are usable across nonprofits. Pooling resources to create these and their methodologies would be advantageous. Foundations have been known to fund partnered researched endeavors – it is everything they want to see. It is working together for “the common good” and sharing costs to do so.

But people are people, and there is always the necessity to establish parameters in order to protect each organization.  One of the most important parameters is the legal structure within which the collaboration is undertaken, which may include one of the following:

• Memorandum of Understanding or Contract
• Service Agreement
• Mutual Service Agreement
• Resource-Sharing Agreement
• Fiscally Sponsored Collaborative
• Partnership

Whichever collaborative structure is selected, clear communication and respect for each other are key.

Just for a moment, imagine what communities would look like if there were more targeted approaches to meeting actual needs of its members by organizations partnering together and doing the necessary follow-up to ensure it is being done as best as possible. Instead of many similar services offered, and nonprofits vying for outputs, beneficiaries are offered varying layers of services that flow seamlessly into each other. Beneficiaries receive more services relevant to their long-term needs.

Now, let’s shoot for that.