“Collaboration is an ill-defined term, and too little is known about exactly how much is taking place, in what forms, and whether or not some forms are more successful than others. In an effort to make sense of the phenomenon, even as sector leaders call for more of it, The Bridgespan Group, in collaboration with The Lodestar Foundation, conducted research over the course of 2014 on participation in and success with four common forms of formal collaboration — associations, joint programs, shared support functions, and mergers — and the barriers that block results. …

We surveyed 237 non-profit CEOs and 101 foundation officers on their experiences and opinions across this spectrum. We distributed the CEO survey through our non-profit CEO LinkedIn group of more than 9,000; half of respondents had annual revenues of $1 million or more. And we distributed the funder survey through Grantmakers for Effective Organization’s listserv of close to 4,000.

A joint Bridgespan-Lodestar-SeaChange team reviewed the findings, and Bridgespan calibrated them versus a database of profiles housed at The Foundation Center of 664 collaborations that had been submitted for consideration for the Collaboration Prize.”