Reviews

The Collaboration Challenge: How Nonprofits and Business Succeed Through Strategic Alliance

By James E. Austin. Jossey-Bass, Inc. 888/378-2537. www.josseybass.com. 2000. 225 pages. $25 plus shipping.

Review by Beth Brown

We all want to partner. We all speak of collaborative spirit. But when the rubber meets the road, what does collaboration really entail, and what’s the difference between a deal and an alliance?

James Austin breaks down the notion of collaboration into a must-read users guide for any organizational leader embarking on a collaboration. And although the book is geared toward corporations and their nonprofit partners, many of the lessons are universal and can be applied to any individual or organization considering a joint venture, be it a marriage or cross-sector alliance.

Austin notes the role serendipity and personal relationships plays in introducing partnerships—a conversation in a coffee shop or during a long plane ride—often sparking the “ah-ha” moment leading to the realization that a corporation and a nonprofit have what Austin calls mission mesh. The organizations’ leaders can see how their visions’ core competencies can make a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Through in-depth and candid examples from partnerships, including those between Starbucks and CARE, Timberland and City Year, and American Eagle Outfitters and Jumpstart, Austin chronicles the necessary, and often awkward, stages businesses and nonprofits pass through in order to become strategic partners.

Austin has a healthy skepticism for the ease of collaboration. He often likens it to dating, and as with a courting pair from different countries, he sees the cultural and values barriers between the sectors as the greatest obstacle to collaboration. The corporate leaders he interviews are open about the fact that their bottom line is to make a profit and a partnership can often assist their public relations efforts.

For the nonprofits, there is greater accountability held when working with corporations, and sometimes the social value nonprofits generate is not easily quantifiable. In addition, each can be associated with the mistakes of the other. However, the payoff is that one can also be associated with the success of the other and be exposed to new audiences—potential customers for the business, future partners for the nonprofit.

One interesting observation Austin makes is the inherent noncollaborative nature of a philanthropic relationship (it is the lowest on the collaborative totem poll). Although he does not single out foundations, he characterizes the giving of money by one organization to another as an exchange of resources for warm fuzzy feelings.  Among philanthropic relationships, the venture philanthropy approach seems to offer a model of partnership similar in the level of engagement to the examples mentioned in Austin’s book.

The details from the examples and extensive quotes of philanthropic and business leaders, such as Aaron Lieberman of Jumpstart and Jeff Swartz of Timberland, give the reader an insider’s view of what went into the partnership. At the same time, the book is filled with simple big-picture truths such as “serious relationships, organizational and interpersonal, should not be rushed.” That’s a helpful notion to remember with everyone so eager to jump on the partnership bandwagon. Austin reminds us that having and keeping a partnership is not the end all—adding value is the goal and sustainability does not necessarily equal effectiveness.

Austin’s greatest contributions to fostering collaboration are the tools the book includes: questions, checklists, continuums—cheat sheets for collaboration—that would be an asset to any leader considering partnership. In addressing the questions he poses, Austin leads potential collaborators through the development of a partnership purpose.

The final chapter of the book contains a complete conceptual framework for collaboration that seems universally applicable to any partnership. These “Seven C’s of Collaboration” include Connection with Purpose and People, Clarity of Purpose, Congruency of Mission, Creation of Value, Communication Between Partners, Continual Learning, and Commitment to the Partnership.

So let’s all take a cross-sector breath before claiming our next partner and take the messages of James Austin’s book to heart and practice.

ETHICAL SECURITY

The Ethics of Giving and Receiving: Am I My Foolish Brother’s Keeper?

Edited by William F. May and A. Lewis Soens, Jr.  Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility and Southern Methodist University Press. 800/826-8911. www.tamu.edu/tamupress. 2000. 224 pages. $27.50.

Reviewed by Graham Phaup

Growing up in Edinburgh, Scotland, I walked to school each morning past the city library. Carved in sandstone above its doorway were the words “Let there be light”—words that appeared above many libraries in North America and Britain, all built in the early years of last century and all of them funded by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

What was it that inspired Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford and many others to endow future generations with their wealth? And what are the ethics of giving away such vast sums of money?

These fundamental questions are tackled in this thoughtful volume, one of a number published by the Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. The book, ably edited by the center’s William F. May and A. Lewis Soens, is really a collection of essays—all featuring ethics, some more than others.

No matter how much the economy grows, the book argues, philanthropists will face ethical dilemmas. Who gets what? Do we invest for the future or spend down the capital? The book kicks off with a thought-provoking piece from Leon Kass. Kass posits that as foundation largesse has grown, so have the expectations for the recipients. He further challenges the cultures of dependency that can develop as grant dollars begin to roll in. Fairness (always an admirable ethical value among philanthropists) rules, however, throughout this book, and the editors have published a range of essays to counter and challenge Kass’s viewpoint.

In a section on foundations, Steven Wheatley leads us expertly through the formation of Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth.” Trustees of new foundations shouldn’t miss Waldemar Nielsen’s concise history of the Carnegie Corporation. There are rich organizational lessons in his account of the foundation coming to grips with its mission—neatly categorized here as “The Betrayal,” “The Slump,” “The Muddle,” and “The Renaissance.” It is also refreshing to read Curtis W. Meadows, Jr., an advisor to the Maguire Center, writing in this section on “The American Spirit in Philanthropy.”

We are finally presented with a section on voluntary communities, churches and distribution networks, which for some might be a stretch from the book’s stated purpose and ethical theme. However, with President Bush’s team announcing new faith-based initiatives, this section reminds the reader of the Texan origins of the book and the new administration in the nation’s capital.  

Religious themes keep rising and falling in the minds of these essayists. Susan Yohn treats us to an insightful piece on diversity, yet the whole issue of secular versus faith-based ethics is neatly sidestepped. However, with an impressive array of statistics and testimonials, readers cannot but be encouraged by the cadre of volunteers and outreach activities that faith-based programs have to offer.

Still some ask Is philanthropy’s future secured? and Are people going to continue to give? The philosopher Eric Hobsbawn, in his Age of Extremes, argues persuasively that we are living off the civic capital of our forebears, and the flywheel is fast losing energy. Essayists in this book point to reduced giving in recent years with a corresponding drop in volunteerism.

There are even some in today’s philanthropic community trying hard to encourage the creators of today’s wealth to disprove Hobsbawn—to continue to give, and to give generously. With the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a host of other new foundations coming on stream, there is enough evidence to conclude that philanthropy has a long and productive future. That future will be more secure when ethical decisionmaking becomes a more intrinsic part of the way things get done at foundations. This useful book is a step in the right direction.