To Join or Not to Join… the Coalition Question

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Coalition.

You hear the word a lot. Coalition of the Willing. Christian Coalition. Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Coalition Against Gun Violence. Two hundred million hits for the word on Google. Why are there so many? What are the benefits? Disadvantages? How do you decide whether to join? 

Coalitions are a group of like-minded people aligning themselves long-term to meet common goals. Nonprofits form coalitions to provide services, to educate, or to advocate. Before jumping into a relationship with another organization, you should think through the implications to ensure you are maximizing the benefits to your stakeholders.

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Benefits

• Increased numbers. There is strength in numbers. For partnerships formed around policy advocacy, increasing the number of people involved in actions is vital. More people means more letters, phone calls, meetings, or petitions. More people translates to more significant results. 
  
• Maximized resources. Most nonprofits have limited resources. Dividing up responsibilities according to each organizations’ strengths maximizes resources by sharing costs for personnel, office space, materials, etc. 
  
• More ideas. Coalitions are an effective way to share ideas and refine plans. How can a strategy be tweaked to get the best results? Are there downsides to the project? Is there a better approach? By working with other groups, you increase the size of your brain trust.
  

Potential Challenges 

• More nurturing. Like any relationship, you need to nourish a coalition. The flip-side to “more ideas” is more potential for conflict. To minimize possible friction, you should draft a written partnership agreement that outlines the roles and responsibilities of all the partners and how you will make decisions. 
  
• Diluted branding. You will need to agree on your image, talking points, social media strategy, etc. Many coalitions develop a unique logo so that partners can co-brand materials with both the organizations’ and the coalition’s names. You should discuss branding before a coalition is official and include the decision in a partnership agreement.
  
• A weak link. If one partner does not fulfill its obligations, everyone is affected. Regular updates between members are key to mitigating this risk. Or you can consider different memberships levels – for example, a new member might need to prove it can deliver before it becomes a decision-making member. 
  

Even the laziest reader will have noticed the word “potential” above. There is a straightforward reason for this - I am a big fan of coalitions, and proper planning and communication are crucial to mitigating these risks.

After an organization weighs all the benefits and potential disadvantages of a coalition, it may decide that a coalition is not the best strategy and, instead, a better option would be an alliance (which is a looser association than a coalition) or a network (which is more short-term than a coalition). I am as big a fan of these types of associations as well because any partnership will increase the number of people and ideas involved and may decrease costs for individual organizations. Therefore joining any well-managed partnership will help maximize a nonprofit’s benefits for its stakeholders – which is the goal of mission-based organizations.