Well.
Organizations all over the country are looking for ways to overcome canceled events, lost sponsors, or donors. If you’ve read my previous posts, I’ve said this a few times but understanding where you are now, and stabilizing, is most important. More important than jumping into action around what to “do” next.
As you assess, avoid the tendency to isolate. Are you looking at ways to stabilize as a collective? Or, are you coming from a place of being all alone in this?
A shift to problem-solving collectively, instead of burrowing into isolation, can be difficult for those of us who don’t like others in our sandbox. But, now would be a good time to work through that!
Everything that’s happening at the moment is going to take a collective effort. There are some costs that will have to be reconsidered and money reallocated. Rather than sitting in a “slash and burn” space, find opportunities to defray costs; by splitting those costs with other organizations or by splitting responsibilities.
Working in collaboratives and cooperatives is an amazing way to do this.
Not sure how to get started? Some thoughts on structures and arrangements are below.
Types of Collaborative Structures
Whereas most look at collaboration as this either/or thing, collaboration is more of a spectrum. Ways to work with others range from:
Working Groups or Collaborative: This can be something as simple as a list-serv, verbal desire to work together, or Facebook Group.
Networks: These tend to be a little more organized. Networks might even include a membership structure and governance. There is a ton of room in what a network can look like.
Joint Venture or Partnership: This is a bit more formal. Organizations can create a joint venture or partnership verbally, through a contract, and some may form joint ventures or partnerships as a legal entity. This is a bit more involved to undo, so more thought has to go into it.
Cooperative: Smaller individuals or entities can come together and take certain actions as a cooperative. Cooperatives can be formed by contract, structure, or a legal entity. I talk a little more about these below.
Ways For Nonprofits, Small Businesses, and Social Enterprises to Collaborate
Now is the time to get creative about how organizations stabilize. Start by looking at where the money is committed. Sometimes, there are costs we may be committed to for a specific project. For example, a specific computer license. If the cost is pinching your budget, you might reach out to the software company to see if you can negotiate more licenses to share with another organization and split the cost.
Or, let’s say you decide you have to slash your marketing budget. Right now, the costs of marketing online have gone through the roof. Rather than committing those dollars to ads, set up a platform with multiple organizations where you share your events and cross-promote others. This way, you not only share the costs of the platform but can share the advertising costs of promoting the platform.
The Beauty of the Cooperative
Cooperatives are another great way to defray costs. Within the last few months, I’d had an uptick in the number of organizations looking to set up purchasing cooperatives. What they were purchasing ranged. Some setup cooperatives so smaller organizations with one or two employees could purchase health insurance. Others set up purchasing cooperatives for raw materials (in the case of a jewelry group) or supplies.
What the purchasing cooperative does is it allows you to leverage the power of numbers to get deep discounts that aren’t available to individual members alone because of their size.
Reciprocally, I’ve worked with selling cooperatives. The costs of acquiring customers can be difficult and expensive for small businesses and individuals. With a selling cooperative, members can leverage size for deep discounts on advertising and physical or virtual space while creating a pipeline of potential customers to which they can all promote.
I’ve also seen cooperatives where members share tools, resources, equipment, and education.
As a side note, a cooperative can be an arrangement, a structure, or a legal entity. Not every state allows for a cooperative as a legal entity, in which case you might look at forming an exempt organization and build in a cooperative structure.
Find What Works For Your Nonprofit, Small Business, Or Social Enterprise
I know what’s going to happen. Someone will reach out and ask, “Well what should I do?”
The infuriating but realistic answer is…it depends.
Time, financial resources, and people will play a lot into the decision. More formal arrangements can yield bigger savings, but require people and time. If these are three things you have little of right now, you might form a loose network with a strong backbone committee of larger organizations to support smaller members.
If it’s just you, one person, you might look into joining an existing collaborative.
Throughout the week, there have been interesting examples of cooperative and collaborative support. For example, The Nonprofit Quarterly reported on students setting up a “mutual aid” network to support one another as campuses shut down and funds become tight.
Take notes of what gets reported on for inspiration and tweak in ways that feels right for you.
If you’re looking for resources on different structures or getting started, head over to https://www.emcclartypllc.com/resource-page.html