Over the past decade, Community for New Direction has tripled in size thanks to a shift in thinking.
By collaborating with strategic partners in a variety of ways, including sharing its office space, the nonprofit has grown to four locations, 22 full-time and 10 part-time employees and more than $2 million in annual revenue, says President and CEO Gregory Jefferson. That’s a lot of growth for an organization that started in a two-bedroom apartment in a housing development on the west side of Columbus in 1989.
Part of the reason for the shift has been because of industry forces. The funders want to fund entities that provide multiple services at the same site or with the same target population, he says.
Therefore, smart nonprofits have looked at collaboration. Jefferson says that the organizations that didn’t make that paradigm shift before 2008, when the economy declined, have either been absorbed by others or gone out of business.
“We look at collaboration as a way to share resources, not to move outside of what our niche is,” he says. “Our niche is substance abuse prevention, and so we don’t want to try to just go after dollars that really are not within our niche.”
If a grant talks about mental health services, education and prevention services, CND would collaborate with other organizations and come in and do the prevention piece, Jefferson says.
Opening up
But like any change, it hasn’t always been easy.
“The biggest challenge was probably just being open to sharing information, what used to be considered private information,” Jefferson says. “It was really that whole paradigm shift in thinking about secrecy vs. openness.”
If CND submits a grant proposal, other nonprofits also get a copy of that — something the company would have never shared in the past.
Jefferson also spends more time networking and reaching out to find the right nonprofit partners. He’s always trying to share what they do, while thinking: Is there an opportunity for a meaningful collaboration here?
“There’s no exact science to that. It’s hit and miss,” he says.
Although the funders dictate whom CND partners with to some extent, Jefferson also looks for organizations that treat the consumers right and show a commitment to service. CND’s focus has always been on service delivery and building relationships with clients, so he wants to work with those who follow similar values.
Creating efficiencies
In addition to collaborating when it comes to service, CND has found ways to share resources.
Jefferson says CND was part of a Columbus Foundation grant, where they and three other nonprofits worked with an outside consultant to analyze areas for potential collaboration.
So, in 2012, CND, the Mental Health America of Franklin County, the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation and Multiethnic Advocates for Cultural Competence co-located under one roof.
“It gave us an immediate savings in dollars,” Jefferson says.
His average rent or mortgage payment of about $3,500 a month went down to around $1,200 a month at the shared rental space.
The organizations have also taken it to another level by sharing back office services. For example, CND provides fiscal services to two of the other organizations, and one of the nonprofits supplies the front office receptionist for all four organizations.
Jefferson says they also share in purchasing, which gives them more dollars to spend toward programming.
The arrangement did take a little adjusting, though, because they were all used to making decisions based only on their own needs.
“We had to walk our way through it, feel our way through it,” he says.
One of the things that helped was a committee of direct service staff and an executive committee that met on a monthly basis through the first year to identify issues and work out a plan of action.
Jefferson says that successful collaboration is similar to teamwork — you need to communicate and delineate who does what.
This trend is now part of the industry, and smaller organizations especially need to take advantage — even though there’s no exact science to it. He says if you’re trying to figure out what to do and how to do it, the key is collaboration.
“Get out there and see who else is already in your arena and how you might partner with them to enhance what they are doing,” Jefferson says. “And both entities end up benefitting from the relationship.”
