In the world of social impact, a persistent question echoes: Why are nonprofits, municipalities, health systems, and private-sector companies so reluctant to collaborate?
While many point to competition for resources and inherent power disparities, research suggests that the root cause may be cultural—particularly here in the United States.
Exploring the Cultural Barrier: American Individualism
Sociologist Geert Hofstede’s 6-D model of national culture suggests Americans are uniquely defined by their fierce individualism. In Hofstede’s rating system, the United States ranks as the most individualistic society in the world, strongly favoring independence over interdependence.
Our penchant as Americans to resist working harmoniously together is literally everywhere you look — social media, political advertisements, homeowner’s associations, heck, even the aisles of your local grocery store (looking at you pushy shoppers at my Plaza-Midwood Harris Teeter).
And that’s perhaps in part because competition is deeply woven into the American experience, creating a significant barrier to building unified efforts. But, like it or not, collaboration is necessary, both in everyday life and as part of peer engagement inside the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.
So how do today’s top organizations address the collaboration challenge?
Identifying Obstacles to Nonprofit Collaboration
In corporate America, the struggle to foster collaborative teams is well-recognized. The team-building service market tops $3 billion annually and is expected to grow to $9 billion by 2031.
Nonprofits and community-based organizations are expected to work together to solve society’s biggest challenges, but here’s something to consider: If corporate teams from a single organization, with similar educational backgrounds and related professional experiences, struggle to collaborate naturally, what hope do social good leaders have of effective cross-organizational collaboration? Without access to the team-building tools and resources afforded to the private sector, how can nonprofit leaders align their organizations’ diverse staff, needs, and interests?
That said, a general lack of resources is nothing new for those in social good.
At Next Stage, we often quote Dan Pallota, American entrepreneur and author, who in his famous TED Talk argued that our society places unrealistic expectations on nonprofits. He explores how our culture’s wrongheaded thoughts on compensation in social good force nonprofits into survival mode, stifling their potential for real impact:
“In the for-profit sector, the more value you produce, the more money you can make. But we don’t like nonprofits to use money to incentivize people to produce more in social service. We have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone would make very much money helping other people. Interesting that we don’t have a visceral reaction to the notion that people would make a lot of money not helping other people. You know, you want to make 50 million dollars selling violent video games to kids, go for it. We’ll put you on the cover of Wired magazine. But you want to make half a million dollars trying to cure kids of malaria, and you’re considered a parasite yourself.”
And in a time where 22% of nonprofit employees are living paycheck to paycheck, it’s easy to understand why nonprofit leaders are feeling the pressure to prove their organization’s efficiency and worth to grantmakers and funders. This ever-present state of “survival mode” inevitably leaves little room for experimenting with cross-organizational collaboration — despite its potential benefits for addressing complex social issues.
But the collaboration barriers social good institutions face aren’t just cultural or financial. Nonprofits often are dealing with widely diverse perspectives, complicated power dynamics, twisted incentives for output metrics imposed by donors, and competition for limited funding opportunities.
Against these odds, it’s any wonder collaborative efforts in social good ever get off the ground in the first place.
So where do we go from here?
Shifting the Narrative
Nonprofit leaders are often motivated by a deep sense of mission and feel personally responsible for their organization’s success. While this perspective is noble and much needed in this sector, it’s important to recognize this outlook can create a “silo mentality,” making leaders hesitant to open up their operations or share resources with other nonprofits. Collaboration, in this context, can feel like a risk — a relinquishment of autonomy that might dilute their own organization’s impact or slow its progress.
But that sense of ownership and mission that drives nonprofit leaders could be leveraged to encourage cross-organizational collaboration. By shifting the narrative away from competition and toward shared outcomes, we can highlight that nonprofits are all part of a larger ecosystem working for the common good.
This requires not just a shift in mindset but also practical support for the underpinnings of collaboration — relationship-building that leads to feelings of connection and trust.
It’s the main idea behind Cultivate Impact®, our digital collaboration management tool that centers the building of social cohesion between platform participants as a central goal. We believe that, deep down, people working to create positive outcomes for others have more in common than they think they do. By highlighting those areas of intersection and sparking engagement around them, we work to forge more effective networks of people working together toward common goals.
Achieving Cross-Organizational Collaboration
If corporate America is spending billions of dollars on team building to sell consumer products, shouldn’t institutions advancing social good be encouraged to invest in similar supports?
By addressing the cultural and practical barriers to collaboration, we can unlock the full potential of nonprofit organizations and create significant, lasting impact in our communities.
Interested in learning more about Cultivate Impact® and how it creates more effective collaboration? Reach out to schedule time to chat.
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Next Stage CEO Josh Jacobson launched Next Stage as a social enterprise in 2014, bridging his professional experiences as a nonprofit practitioner with his consulting expertise. He has led Next Stage’s work with 200+ clients, including nonprofits, private-sector companies, municipalities, faith institutions, philanthropies, and community-based organizations. Josh’s skills in strategic positioning and tactical design help clients achieve their goals. He guides Next Stage’s work in strategic planning and collaboration management and is a major contributor to the company’s thought leadership efforts.