In today’s issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, Anne Wallestad and Katie Smith Milway identify six moments in every organization’s business cycle that are ripe for discussion around how mergers and alliances can advance mission and impact. We provide a short excerpt of the piece here but encourage you to visit the SSIR website to read How Nonprofit Boards Can Start the Merger Conversation in its entirety.
Ample data supports the need for nonprofit boards to consider inorganic growth—through mergers, acquisitions, and other strategic alliances—as they look to scale their organization’s impact on, say, college access, climate change mitigation, or obesity prevention. But figuring out how to start that conversation can be tricky, because it requires giving up control to advance the mission.
A collaborative project, The Power of Possibility: Exploring Greater Impact Through Strategic Partnerships, between BoardSource, The Bridgespan Group, La Piana Consulting, Propel Nonprofits, The Lodestar Foundation, Lyda Hill, and The Patterson Foundation, has zeroed in on six ripe moments in a mission-led organization to consider such alliances, with supporting case studies and discussion topic ideas to start the conversation.
- Executive transition
- Strategy and planning
- Innovation and scale
- Adapting to change
- Closing the doors
- Starting a new nonprofit
Read How Nonprofit Boards Can Start the Merger Conversation in its entirety and learn of a successful merger between Boston Scores and One Hen.
