• What does the term "collaboration" mean to you when it's applied to your thinking about Social Change?

Re: Definition: taking cooperative, collective action for greater social impact.*

I would expand the definition. Collaborative approach in the social sector is a way of doing business that promotes transparency and puts a lens on your work that supports open standards and fosters development of solutions that help the field as well as solve your problem. Simply allowing information to be available is a way of fostering collaboration. It is not necessarily a discreet action or initiative but an openness which enables awareness and future collaboration.

At the end of the day, collaboration may in fact lead to greater social impact (greater reach & larger scale impact), but how it does this is equally important. Collaboration allows for greater efficiency and the leveraging of core expertise of multiple organizations. Enabling organizations to capitalize on the strenghths of another, to complement skill sets and services - this is the beauty of collaboration. Collaboration can take the form of mergers, serve as a tactic for sustainability, and play a key role in scaling.

• Can you share good or bad examples of collaboration in the Social Change sector that you've participated in or admired?

http://search.socialentrepreneur api.org First open source database of vetted social entrepreneurs. Simple, yet impactful, scalable, and beneficial to not only the participants but many others - It has created actionable knowledge and the value of the tool will continue to grow along with the increased collaboration.

• Is collaboration more effective when it's structured or unstructured?

Two schools of thought - don't go in with the answers, answers need to be built. Alternatively, you DO need a process and ideally a "shepherd" to ensure that time is used efficiently and progress is made. Otherwise, people return to their daily work demands and the collaboration takes the back seat.

• Does collaboration ever fail to increase social impact? If yes, what are the factors that lead to failure

Yes, I would think so - when the collaboration is forced, not a good fit, not clearly defined, or is not mutually beneficial. Also there needs to be clearly identified champions from both organizations to be successful.

• What are the biggest incentives for collaborating? The biggest deterrents?

The biggest incentive is solving specific internal organization issue or challenge. The biggest deterrants: fear, money, and time. You need upfront collaboration that is low risk, high reward, then you can build to bigger collaboration. Precedent from other industries helps, proof of concept helps, "pilot programs" help. Asking for $ upfront can not only cause friction, it can be a complete barrier. (Not always, of course, - well thought out, larger scale initiatives may take longer, but that rigor can overcome barrier and fear of risk associated with deploying resources). Think about what could go right - not just what could go wrong.