Last semester, one of my blog postings is about break the silo in different levels: intra-organizational silo, inter-organizational silo and cross-sector silo. In the blog, inter-organizational silo refers to the insufficient interaction among nonprofit organizations. I still remember during our NYC trip last semester, Nancy Wackstein, the Executive Director of United Neighborhood Houses said, “nonprofit is not equal to non-competitive; on the other hand, it is fiercely competitive for funding and is also driven by market force.” Since this fierce competition exists among different nonprofit organizations, they feel reluctant to share information and resources, for fear of losing the funding of their own and give away public awareness.
However, the book Forces for Good talked about how “great organizations work with and through others to create more impact than they could ever achieve alone” (p.19), indicating that by viewing other nonprofit organizations as partners rather than competitors, social entrepreneurs can “do more with less”. If it is true that social entrepreneurs are “extremely pragmatic” and “on the relentless pursuit of results”, then they would think about to give up some resources and awareness in return for better or larger results.
My question is, what does “result” mean in this context? Does this mean the final destination—to change the world? Does it mean to fully meet the organization’s mission? Or does it simply mean to raise more funds for the organization and maximize its own public awareness? Different answers to this question can affect a lot whether to collaborate with other nonprofit organizations and to what extent this collaboration ends. What is your understanding about the “results” in this book?
I think that the term "results" in the context of the Forces for Good book refers to worldwide, systemic results. I think that by attempting to effect worldwide results, the organizations referred to in the book also are working toward fulfilling their missions. The organizations described in the book do not seem to be focused on raising funds for their organization and maximizing awareness about it in the way that other organizations do; rather, they seem to be focused on these things only for the purpose of increasing results worldwide. They seem to focus more on increasing success in solving problems (poverty, homelessness, etc.), rather than on increasing success in other arenas (in terms of public awareness, etc.).
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