Come On Funders, Give Rural America A Break!
Come on Funders, Give Rural America a Break!
The Snavely/Tracy article on rural nonprofit collaborations was interesting and exposed a unique service population in the third sector that we often forget. If you don’t live in a rural area, it’s likely that you just don’t think much about the geographic-specific challenges that are an inherent part of that community.
Collaboration is certainly a trend being encouraged in all sectors. In the profit-making world we call it mergers and acquisitions when in actuality these ‘marriages’ are more like hostile takeovers (e.g., US Airways biting at the heels of Delta). Nonetheless, the basic justification for bringing two or more entities together is pretty much the same across the board; for the purpose of realizing synergy.
In the nonprofit sector, in particular, federal legislation now strongly encourages collaborative efforts and often will not consider an organization for funding unless they have solid evidence (i.e., Memorandums of Understanding or other friendly contract-like documents). And yet as strongly as they encourage collaborations as part of the criteria in the competitive process, their guidelines for grant recipients often make it difficult for funding recipients to live up to the collaborations originally proposed.
In rural communities like the two that were studied in this research effort, there are many, many barriers that can prohibit the successful collaboration of nonprofit organizations. Geographic size, population dispersion, lack of public or personal transportation, cultural issues, and lack of local community matching resources are very real environmental problems that can greatly curtail the sharing of information and resources that is required in collaborations.
While it was encouraging to read that there is some degree of collaboration taking place in the two communities studied (case management and referral services were the most prevalent examples of this), I was frustrated to read that the adoption of common service procedures, policies and guidelines between organizations were only practiced by about 1/3 of the responding nonprofits. Isn’t this where collaboration would be most beneficial? Wouldn’t more people in rural communities be helped in a more efficient and effective way if nonprofs adopted common service delivery procedures, guidelines and strategies?
I can just imagine the frail senior citizen, the parents of a special needs child, or the farmer in need of health care, trying to navigate a rural patchwork system of services where each nonprofit has their own specific set of rules, guidelines and procedures that requires a lot of bureaucratic paperwork and other annoying inconveniences.
In these tiny communities where trust and pride are major issues and citizens are not accustomed to asking for help, I’d like to see the government funding sources relax some of the strict service procedures that are often part of the funding and compliance agreements with the nonprofit groups. Maybe if the funding sources could remove some of the walls and barriers that are part and parcel of the grants, the rural communities could realize more meaningful collaborations.
The Snavely/Tracy article on rural nonprofit collaborations was interesting and exposed a unique service population in the third sector that we often forget. If you don’t live in a rural area, it’s likely that you just don’t think much about the geographic-specific challenges that are an inherent part of that community.
Collaboration is certainly a trend being encouraged in all sectors. In the profit-making world we call it mergers and acquisitions when in actuality these ‘marriages’ are more like hostile takeovers (e.g., US Airways biting at the heels of Delta). Nonetheless, the basic justification for bringing two or more entities together is pretty much the same across the board; for the purpose of realizing synergy.
In the nonprofit sector, in particular, federal legislation now strongly encourages collaborative efforts and often will not consider an organization for funding unless they have solid evidence (i.e., Memorandums of Understanding or other friendly contract-like documents). And yet as strongly as they encourage collaborations as part of the criteria in the competitive process, their guidelines for grant recipients often make it difficult for funding recipients to live up to the collaborations originally proposed.
In rural communities like the two that were studied in this research effort, there are many, many barriers that can prohibit the successful collaboration of nonprofit organizations. Geographic size, population dispersion, lack of public or personal transportation, cultural issues, and lack of local community matching resources are very real environmental problems that can greatly curtail the sharing of information and resources that is required in collaborations.
While it was encouraging to read that there is some degree of collaboration taking place in the two communities studied (case management and referral services were the most prevalent examples of this), I was frustrated to read that the adoption of common service procedures, policies and guidelines between organizations were only practiced by about 1/3 of the responding nonprofits. Isn’t this where collaboration would be most beneficial? Wouldn’t more people in rural communities be helped in a more efficient and effective way if nonprofs adopted common service delivery procedures, guidelines and strategies?
I can just imagine the frail senior citizen, the parents of a special needs child, or the farmer in need of health care, trying to navigate a rural patchwork system of services where each nonprofit has their own specific set of rules, guidelines and procedures that requires a lot of bureaucratic paperwork and other annoying inconveniences.
In these tiny communities where trust and pride are major issues and citizens are not accustomed to asking for help, I’d like to see the government funding sources relax some of the strict service procedures that are often part of the funding and compliance agreements with the nonprofit groups. Maybe if the funding sources could remove some of the walls and barriers that are part and parcel of the grants, the rural communities could realize more meaningful collaborations.
posted by Anonymous @ 9:39 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home