Creating Value in Nonprofit-Business Collaborations New Thinking and Practice

Creating Value in Nonprofit-Business Collaborations: New Thinking & Practice provides breakthrough thinking about how to conceptualize and realize collaborative value. With over a hundred case examples from around the globe and hundreds of literature references, the book reveals how collaboration between businesses and nonprofit organizations can most effectively co-create significant economic, social, and environmental value for society, organizations, and individuals. This essential resource features the ground-breaking Collaborative Value Creation framework that can be used for analyzing the sources, forms, and processes of value creation in partnerships between businesses and nonprofits. The book is a step-by-step guide for business managers and non-profit practitioners for achieving successful cross-sector partnerships. It examines the key dimensions of the Collaborative Mindset that shape each partner's collaborative efforts. It analyzes the drivers of partnership evolution along the Collaboration Continuum, and sets forth the key pathways in the Collaboration Process Value Chain. The book concludes by offering Twelve Smart Practices of Collaborative Value Creation for the design and management of cross sector partnerships. The book will empower organizations to strategically increase the potential for value creation both for the partners and society.

Praise for Creating Value in Nonprofit-Business Collaborations: New Thinking & Practice!

"This is a playbook for enabling business and nonprofits to co-create shared value. These new types of collaborations about creating value, rather than the tense standoffs of the past, are part of the way we will create actual solutions to society's challenges."
Michael J. Porter, Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, Harvard Business School

"Co-creating value is a powerful concept Jim Austin and May Seitanidi are sharing with us that will bring business and non-profit leaders to a new level of understanding and performance. This new book is the indispensable guidebook for leaders of the future."
Frances Hesselbein, Founding President and CEO of the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute, Former CEO of the Girl Scouts of America, and Holder of Presidential Medal of Freedom

"I love the book! While it focuses on "cross sector" collaboration, it should be read by every executive in the "for-profit" sector. Business is about how to collaborate with stakeholders to create value. This book tells you how to do it. Bravo!"
R. Edward Freeman, University Professor and Olsson Professor The Darden School University of Virginia

"Finally a book that demystifies what is probably the single most indispensable strategy for advancing social change: cross sector collaboration that creates genuine, measurable value for all. The book is an original and valuable resource for both the nonprofit and business sectors, providing a promising new roadmap that shows how to go beyond fighting for one's share of the pie, to collaboration that actually makes the pie grow."
Billy Shore, Founder and CEO of Share Our Strength and Chairman of Community Wealth Ventures

"Professors Austin and Seitanidi provide essential guidance for managers determining how to produce benefits for their organizations and high impact for society. This is an informed, thoughtful, and practical analysis."
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School and author of SuperCorp: How Vanguard Companies Create Innovation, Profits, Growth and Social Good

Figures and Table vi

Foreword xi

Preface xv

Acknowledgments xix

1 Collaboration: It’s All about Creating Value 1

2 The Collaborative Value Creation Spectrum: A Deeper Understanding of Value 9

3 The Collaborative Value Mindset 41

4 Collaboration Stages and Value Relationships 65

5 Collaborative Value Creation Processes 127

6 Assessing the Value of Collaboration Outcomes 179

7 Twelve Smart Practices for Maximizing Collaborative Value Creation 199

Notes 219

References 241

About the Authors 277

Index 279

James E. Austin is the Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School. He is one of the pioneering researchers and authors in the field of nonprofit-business alliances and the author of the award-winning The Collaboration Challenge. Austin has provided advisory services to private companies, governments, international development agencies, educational institutions, and nongovernmental organizations, and has served as a special advisor to the White House.

M. May Seitanidi (FRSA), PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Strategy at Kent Business School, University of Kent and Visiting Fellow at the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR) of the University of Nottingham. Her work for over 20 years as a consultant, trainer, and researcher focuses on the interactions between business and nonprofit organizations. She is the editor of the Annual Review of Social Partnerships (ARSP) and author of The Politics of Partnerships and co-editor (with Andrew Crane) of Social Partnerships and Responsible Business: A Research Handbook.