Lifting non-profit sector efficacy through administrative collaboration in Aotearoa: benefits, required practices, and evidencing outcomes

Abstract

Collaboration offers one way for small non-profit organisations to achieve more significant outcomes aligned with the purpose for which they exist. Administrative collaboration, a specific type of collaboration, aims to make organisations more efficient by sharing space, staff, and other organisational resources. International research has demonstrated the advantages of collaboration derived by non-profit organisations. However, levels of collaboration amongst non-profit organisations in Aotearoa are low. Aotearoa has the highest rate of non-profit organisations per capita of any Western country and small organisations outnumber larger ones ten-to-one. Research has found that smaller organisations have less collaborative capacity and therefore need greater assistance to collaborate, yet few guides exist to support small non-profits to collaborate. In addition, there are barriers to securing philanthropic and government funding for collaborative initiatives. This study sought to address the gap in the scholarly literature on administrative collaboration for small non-profit organisations in Aotearoa. The intention was to understand the benefits of collaboration, provide helpful information for non-profits on how to collaborate, and develop information for funders on how to support the sector. A qualitative approach involved six interviews with participants from five small non-profit organisations in Aotearoa participating in an administrative collaboration. A reflexive approach to the data analysis developed three themes, including: 1) the required practices for collaboration, 2) the benefits of working together, and 3) conceptualising outcomes from collaboration. Findings broadly supported the initial premise of this study that administrative collaboration can make non-profits more efficient. However, administrative collaborations may be most successful when one part of a wider collaboration between organisations that share a similar purpose. Many benefits of collaboration found in the literature on larger organisations are also found in smaller organisations in Aotearoa. However, locally, greater emphasis and value were placed on the transient benefits. Transient benefits are linked to the continuance of collaboration and interpersonal relationships that support increased efficiency, resiliency, impact, and the reduction of administrative burden. The dominance of organisational theories in the scholarly literature may have obscured the importance of interpersonal relationships to collaboration and its outcomes. Non-profit collaboration had a role in developing knowledge of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, a finding with implications for those in other colonised countries. Findings build a case for the change needed in the philanthropic and government sectors to support the non-profit sector to become more collaborative and effective. However, evidencing the outcomes from collaboration was critical to gaining philanthropic and government funding support, yet was understudied in the scholarly literature. Findings suggest that qualitative methodologies are most suited to measuring outcomes from collaboration, in contrast to the quantitative expectations of funders.