Change Comes at a Cost
In 2008, a group of Chicago’s oldest and largest social service agencies formed the Back Office Cooperative, which a McKinsey & Company study estimated could save as much as $100 million annually through joint purchasing and shared administrative functions. Although the cooperative has produced impressive financial savings, greater efficiency has come at a cultural cost.
In 2006, a report sponsored by two of Chicago’s largest social service funders, the Chicago Community Trust and the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, warned a coalition of 22 of the city’s oldest and financially strongest human service agencies and community nonprofits that they faced the prospect of decreasing revenues and rising service demands. To better use existing resources, the report advised the coalition—the Chicago Alliance for Collaborative Effort (CACE)—to develop a plan...
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By understanding their unique role in the social change landscape, nonprofit organizations can increase their impact.
A response to a recent article on high stakes donor collaborations, highlighting the New York Merger, Acquisition, and Collaboration Fund.
Organizations need the ability to both scale up successful innovations and create new ones, even those that challenge the status quo.
Innovation is necessary to further social progress, and yet the challenges and paradoxes inherent in the endeavor cannot be avoided.
From Skoll World Forum 2013: Will new measurement tools such as “big data” be a big distraction or a big opportunity?
