Why aren't more mission-aligned nonprofits partnering up?
Pooya Pourak
Human-Centered Designer | Co-founder & CEO of MatchNice | Host of The Nonprofit Lab
"Why aren't more mission-aligned nonprofits working together to serve our communities? How can the sector create more impact as a whole? (View article on the MatchNice Blog)
1. LET CURIOSITY LEAD THE WAY
Have you ever seen that old school magic trick where the magician pulls a silk cloth from their pocket? They keep pulling and pulling at a seemingly endless cloth only to find more and more and more. That's how it's felt in our journey of discovery working to understand the nonprofit sector as a whole. It all started with one question, and we’ve been pulling at the fabric of the nonprofit sector for a while now...
2. THE BIG QUESTION
Why aren't more mission-aligned nonprofits working together? Come to find, there are a LOT of reasons why nonprofits are reluctant to jump into partnerships with other nonprofits: founder egos, concerns about ownership and losing donors, risks, etc… but these obstacles are not insurmountable if we earnestly put community needs first. So, can we overcome these challenges through a common mission to maximize impact?
3. IMPACT-CENTRIC HYPOTHESIS
If we think of the nonprofit sector as a charitable supply chain (putting our systems thinking hats on), then in order to maximize social impact we should look at ways to optimize mission and values aligned connections between nonprofits, communities, businesses, and government. More transparency about what nonprofits are working on and need is a good starting point to identifying new collaborative opportunities.
4. BIG MISSION, SMALL STARTUP
The questions we've shared up to this point have been core to what’s been driving our team for the last few years and is the central to our mission at MatchNice: connect the nonprofit ecosystem and maximize social impact. Letting our curiosity lead the way, we’ve been interviewing nonprofit leaders to try and understand the challenges that exist, why the sector is where it is, and ways we can help create more impact as a whole.
5. NONPROFITS ARE THE EXPERTS
Who knows the needs of our communities better than the organizations dedicated to serving them every single day? Giving nonprofits a platform to share what they need to effectively deliver their missions is how we can begin to better understand the collective needs of our communities, empower donors to better understand how their donations make a difference, and work to move the needle on social impact. Enter MatchNice.
6. STARTING WITH ONLINE FUNDRAISING
We quickly realized that online donation experiences on most nonprofit websites suck. It's transactional, lacks transparency, connection, and visibility to impact. So we designed an impact-centric fundraising platform to help nonprofits communicate their work, what they need to succeed, and their impact. The initiatives you can donate to with MatchNice become the basis for how we identify mission-aligned partnerships.
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7. COLLABORATIVE VISION
We envision a world where coming together to solve our biggest societal puzzles is the norm, not the exception. Online fundraising is our first area of focus, but we're only getting started. We'll continue to interview and listen to nonprofits, donors and all of the stakeholders in the nonprofit ecosystem to understand their experiences, needs, and wants to inform the design and future of our impact-centric fundraising platform.
8. WE'RE LEARNING A LOT
Each new connection with a nonprofit leader or social impact leader leads us to new discoveries and perspectives that lead to new ideas and questions. We’ve been identifying status quo practices and the shifts that need to happen to get closer towards our mission. Last year we asked why not share everything we’re learning? That’s why we launched The Nonprofit Lab, and now we're sharing our learning with this blog!
9. JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
There’s so much inspiring and incredibly impactful work happening in the nonprofit sector, and we started The Nonprofit Lab as a way to share our journey of discovery with you. We're uncovering a lot of challenging realities and shifts that need to happen, and our goal with the podcast, this blog, and articles to follow are to shine the light on important issues, status quo practices, what’s working, what’s not, and how we can all be a bigger part of social change through the lens of the nonprofit sector.
10. MOVING FORWARD
Our mission at MatchNice and everything we're exploring through The Nonprofit Lab is big enough to dedicate a lifetime to. It’s one that’s reflective of our passions, worth our time, effort, and resources. We look forward to sharing more with you and sparking more conversations as we work to uncover and shake up status quo practices in the nonprofit sector. Thanks for reading and being part of our ongoing journey of discovery.