Lessons in Community Development: An Activist Approach to Stimulating Interorganizational Collaboration

Abstract

A distinct type of interorganizational setting -the fractionated organizational community -is identified and development issues related to it discussed. Drawing on the community development literature, the author sought to improve the conceptualization of collaboration among organizations beyond approaches found in the interorganizational literature. A classification of three development patterns -the individual, segmental, and common -basedon an increasing level of shared decision making among participating organizations provided the framework for an action research project involving 148small nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia area. For 4 years key actors mobilized a network of resource exchange relations among the managers of these organizations, forming the Delaware Valley Council of Agencies. This proved to be an essential catalyst for both a more developed organizational community and an increased ability to manage shared resources within the environment. The lessons learned from the project are formulated into a set of intervention guidelines, and implications for similar types of settings are presented.