ARTICLE
It’s Time For Nonprofits To Collaborate, Communicate, Coordinate Like Never Before
Updated - 05/30/2025
It has long made compelling sense that nonprofits find both formal and informal ways to work together for mutual benefit. With 1.5 million nonprofits there is too much shared if not duplicate mission space. We cringe when we hear well-intended men and women talk about establishing new nonprofits.
The overarching goal is to provide the most effective and cost-efficient solutions to the myriad challenges facing the world. We don’t need more organizations but instead the most concentrated, focused, and unified investment and allocation of finite resources, especially the precious time of staff and volunteers.
This is a time of profound challenges in the social sector and the need to join together couldn’t be more pressing. Let’s set the stage:
- Clouds of uncertainty loom over government funding.
- Societal needs aren’t going away, if anything they’re escalating.
- Stock market and world trade conditions are volatile.
Eskin Fundraising Training enthusiastically advocates that learning community partners of professional and volunteer nonprofit leaders come together to embrace the three C’s — Collaborate, Communicate, Coordinate — for stronger results. In an ever-evolving landscape of challenges and opportunities, this spirit has emerged as a powerful strategy for maximizing impact and addressing complex social issues.
Rather than fighting for slices of the pie, let’s bake bigger pies. This is to dig more deeply into the virtually boundless opportunities to achieve more social sector bang for investments of time, talent, and treasure.
- Make joint requests: Funders cherish receiving them. Rather than being forced to make difficult decisions between competing organizations addressing the same issues, this dramatically improves the return on investment. By joining hands, nonprofits substantially increase the likelihood of being funded and being funded at the full amount of the request. Funding and responsibilities must be meticulously delineated along with the designation of the lead fiscal agent.
- Specialize in providing programs and services: Just as staff and volunteers are matched with responsibilities, they are best suited for, nonprofits with similar missions can deliver programs to beneficiaries based on their capacity and track records.
- Join together to leverage purchasing power: Growing expenditures such as health care and other employee benefits come immediately to mind, among vendor relationships.
- Exchange knowledge: Just as two heads are better than one, bringing together management, staff, board, and volunteers of different organizations will enrich the knowledge base and problem-solving potential to champion similar missions. Approaches to benchmarks and measuring effectiveness come immediately to mind.
- Advocate together: The shifting political winds are challenging fundamental rights and financial support that have enabled nonprofits to thrive. Coordinating their efforts, nonprofits can turn up the volume in informing and influencing decision makers in the right direction.
- Fund capital improvements: As demand for programs and services continues to escalate, organizations need buildings, facilities, and equipment to keep pace. These are increasingly more expensive. Sharing costs may provide the best solution. Being housed in common facilities provides added benefits of synergy among co-tenants. It is encouraging to see more and more related nonprofits take these prudent steps.
- Benefit from research: Data-driven decision making is a must in today’s complex environment. Technology is introducing more and more essential tools from wealth screening, consumer intelligence, and investment savvy. Joint purchases can be made while protecting proprietary interests. Sharing CRM systems wouldn’t qualify as being practical.
- Communications infrastructure: Before being funded, it is essential for donor prospects to know, like, and trust organizations. There is an exciting array of print, digital, and new technology to convey the necessity of missions and moving stories of beneficiaries. Nonprofits can share webmasters, computer equipment, video studios, and social media experts and influencers to achieve much-needed boosts in outreach to stakeholders.
- Emulate funder innovations: Circles of giving are a dynamic component of American philanthropy with about 4,000 giving circles that engage approximately 370,000 people and give away over $1 billion. Being open to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds they truly democratize philanthropy. These groups redefine charitable giving, raise funds from members and the broader community to develop resources for good causes, spread information, and determine the best route to make a significant difference.
- Thinking of launching new nonprofits or projects — press the pause button: The odds are overwhelming that organizations, initiatives, and other commitments already exist. Put egos aside. The motivation is to touch, improve, and save more lives, especially helping those who are struggling. Why reinvent wheels? Achieve stronger impact by investing time and money into proven social change agents and models.
Nonprofits often face challenges that are too vast for any single entity to tackle alone. By joining forces, they can pool resources, share expertise, and amplify their reach, ultimately leading to more effective solutions for the communities they serve. The benefits extend beyond mere resource sharing. When nonprofits work together, they can leverage each other’s strengths, enhance their credibility, and foster innovation. Nonprofit cooperation makes sound business sense and unifies kindred spirits in the quest to leave the world better off than was given to them.
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