History
Representatives of funders Wayne Francis Charitable Trust, J R McKenzie Trust, Todd Foundation and The Tindall Foundation came together in 2009 to discuss how they could best help NGOs to manage through the recession and into the years ahead.
The four funders commissioned research and consultation around collaboration, and found that:
- Community groups work together a lot already
- Successful collaboration takes time, and is not always easy
- It is unlikely to work if forced
- It can add significant value to groups’ effectiveness and efficiency
In October 2009, the Working Together More Fund – He Pūtea Mahi Tahi – was launched. Two years later in October of 2011 The Hugh Green Foundation join the group as the fifth member of WTMF. The goal of the fund is to assist community groups interested in working together more closely to do so, in order to make a greater difference for the people and communities they serve. The fund can provide seeding money and expertise.
Objective
To assist community groups to make a greater difference for the people and communities they serve, through working together more closely with other organisations.
The Fund can provide seeding money and expertise to develop collaborative arrangements, but does not provide ongoing operating costs.
Ways organisations can collaborate
Some of the ways in which collaboration can happen are when two or more organisations:
- share physical facilities – office space and equipment
- share ‘back room’ services – payroll, accounting, IT etc
- share volunteers, secondment of staff
- co–operate at a planning level, for example allocating activities/clients to reduce duplication
- share aspects of management and/or governance
- merge to form one organisation
While a level of working together is expected as part of normal operations for all organisations, sometimes collaboration over and above ‘business as usual’ can bring significantly improved services to end users along with efficiency and effectiveness gains for the organisations concerned.