Collaboration: Engagement for achieving goals together

Introduction :

Collaboration is a tool to bring from different backgrounds together to achieve a common goal. There are multiple ways where collaboration is being done in the digital world be it in the form of digital wallets at payment gateways, drones for transmitting information about people in remote areas or computer systems collecting health data and performing number crunching to fight diseases.

The Old Times vs The New Times :

Collaboration has the potential to create win-win while being on a tight budget while creating better value for the donors. These include the following collaboration strategies:

• Building trust between the stakeholders- this will be shown in the form of good governance, solid financial management and better reporting.

• Having a common goal- The goal of the partner and nonprofit to achieve a common objective will bring forward each other’s best foot forward.

• Different donors may require different types of the value creation model.

• Taking the stock to assess the strengths and weaknesses in the existing processes.

• Make failure your friend and rigorous feedback loop as a strong part of the process.

• Expect, and accept conflict- Gracefully

• Sometimes even non-traditional partners can uncover unique value generation mediums.

• Keeping the donors appraised of the collaborations such as fundraising opportunities.

Collaboration in Road Safety and Livelihood Projects

Re-defining Collaborations

The road safety projects at PotHoleRaja go together with collaborations. Be it with the government, corporates, NGOs, Civic Societies or other stakeholders to fight the cause together in unity.

• Increasing the influence by scaling efforts, expanding programs and services or streamlining operations to gain efficiency.

• Building better advocacy channels by doing brand awareness

• Addressing complex issues which require multiple stakeholder management.

• Integrating various services to meet the needs of the beneficiaries.

• Expand to new geographies, provide new services and reach new beneficiaries.

The Roadmap to having multi-stakeholder collaborations. This road map essentially addresses the lifecycle of such projects.

Immediate Impact

Social innovation and collaboration will possible give immediate impact in terms of: -

• Saving Costs can be shared between both the parties especially admin cost, training expenses or related expenses.

• Strengthening Programs by combining the existing programs and making them stronger.

• Organizational Efficiency and Effectiveness in terms of expediting deliverables.

• Improving services while new tools and resources can assist in higher performance.

• Better mentorship and leadership skills.

PotHoleRaja and Diageo

Collaborating for greater success- Diageo, iVolunteer and PotHoleRaja

Collaborations in the nonprofit sector go hand in hand because the bigger objective becomes primarily important. PotholeRaja and Diageo collaborated while they engaged with ivolunteer. It was a unique opportunity for all the parties to come together and work towards enabling technology and fix a real-time issue, a pothole.

As crucial and critical it may sound. We all use the roads for our local transportation. The government is working towards making our lives easy but we are equally responsible for the roads we use to commute on. And be it individuals or corporates, it gives the employee a sense of pride and admiration towards the work their organisation is doing.

The project at Diageo was conducted both in Mumbai and Bengaluru. The technology used to identify the spots along with pictures , GPS location and videos was shared. The project was initiated in Mumbai - PotHoleRaja team flew from Bengaluru to Mumbai and the pothole fixing projects were initiated thereafter.

The team reached the Diageo office, they met the employees and gave an orientation to them about the work and their contribution towards the initiative. Thereafter, the next day the entire team was in action. A similar model was organised in Bengaluru where 25+ volunteers participated to fix potholes near Shivajinagar.

The feedback went very positive and the Diageo CSR team also confirmed it was their highest employee engagement turnaround in that year which was great news for us.

Learnings

1. Role of collaboration creating a win-win. It is significant.

2. The role of achieving a common objective while delivering high performance and quality.

3. Process driven approach which identifies the lifecycle of the project.

60 SECOND WRAP on Collaboration

1. Collaboration helps organizations meet challenges by balancing operational excellence by innovation.

2. Organisations that collaborate better will realise their full potential and sustain the competitive advantage.

3. Success of collaborations depends on- Culture, Process and Technology.

4. Internal competition can be shared with cultural shared goals and encourage collaborative behaviors.

5. A team charter makes it easier to work and behave collectively.

6. Assess the assets, strengths and weaknesses of the organisation and conclude the way forward.

7. Many organisations have started joining their hands and we should not be left behind in our approach.

References :

• https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/library/nonprofit-management-tools-and-trends/strategic-alliances

• https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnership/?p=30236&fbclid=IwAR1MkTrWaiujjUAgOnpt7C3jW0Gp8XzBokGEgm9Cu6T4ZxcyW8c1goqhf9I

• https://www.dasra.org/assets/uploads/resources/Collaborative%20force%203.pdf

• https://www.bridgespan.org/insights/library/philanthropy/philanthropic-collaboratives-in-india

• https://ssir.org/articles/entry/hacking_nonprofit_collaboration

• https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/columns/the-sustainable-nonprofit/why-and-how-do-nonprofits-work-together

• https://projectchild.ngo/blog/2019/08/29/the-importance-of-partnership-and-collaboration-in-non-profit-sector/

• https://ssir.org/articles/entry/nonprofit_collaboration_2.0#

• https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/thought-leadership/5-tips-nonprofit-collaborations

• https://nonprofithub.org/nonprofit-content/nonprofit-collaboration-the-basics/

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256056903_Nonprofit-Business_Collaboration_as_a_Strategic_Option_for_the_Nonprofit_Sector