Organizing Change From The Inside Out Emerging Models of Intraorganizational Collaboration in Philanthropy

ORGANIZING CHANGE FROM THE INSIDE OUT
Emerging Models of Intraorganizational Collaboration in Philanthropy
Prepared for The Surdna Foundation
Diana Rhoten, Ph.D.

[email protected]
© 2002 The Hybrid Vigor Institute
http://hybridvigor.org
http://hybridvigor.net
+1 415 543-8113
CONTENTS
1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Approach and structure of the study ............................................................................................4
2. The Emergence of Intraorganizational Collaboration..........................................................................5

2.1 The need for intraorganizational collaboration ......................................................................5
2.2 The reasons behind intraorganizational collaboration ...........................................................6
3. The Forms of Intraorganizational Collaboration..............................................................................7

3.1 Criteria and characteristics of intraorganizational collaboration ...........................................7
3.1.1 Definition of terms for criteria .......................................................................................8
3.2 Typological models of intraorganizational collaboration........................................................8
3.2.1 The Personal Interest Model ..........................................................................................9
3.2.2 The Underlying Issue Model.........................................................................................10
3.2.3 The Secondary Engagement Model .............................................................................12
3.2.4 The Team Player Model ...............................................................................................14
3.2.5 The Catalytic Converter Model.....................................................................................17
3.2.6 The Integrated Systems Model ....................................................................................19
4. The Conditions of Intraorganizational Collaboration.....................................................................22

4.1 Intervening variables/ interfering factors.............................................................................22
4.1.1. Organizational Size ......................................................................................................22
4.1.2. Organizational Diversity...............................................................................................23
4.1.3. Organizational Authority ..............................................................................................24
4.1.4. Organizational Employment.........................................................................................25
4.1.5. Organizational Infrastructure .......................................................................................26
5. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................27
6. Acknowledgments ...........................................................................................................................27
Organizing Change from the Inside Out http://hybridvigor.org 2

© 2002 The Hybrid Vigor Institute http://hybridvigor.net
There is no social issue that any foundation in the U.S. can solve on its own that does not require partnership
across foundations and between government, private sector, philanthropy, etc. … However, without internal
integration as well as external partnerships, we are leading only with dispersions of money and not with
coherence of mission.
Chief Executive Officer and President, major U.S. foundation
1. Introduction
Just as the scientific community has begun to identify interdisciplinary connections as essential to
answering fundamental questions and the private sector has begun to view alliances as pivotal to
improving market performance, the not-for-profit sector has also begun to see partnerships as critical to
achieving social change.
Literature in the field of philanthropy now points to the role of networks, arguing that the challenges to
our society are too complex to be met by any one organization or institution, and has recommended that
interorganizational alliances be formed between foundations, government and the private sector to create
more effective philanthropic strategies. While the evolving range of these external networks is an
interesting and important topic, the research presented here — as reflected in the above quotation —
examines the counterpart to that discussion: the internal network, and the notion of intraorganizational
collaborations.
We believe there is an increasing need to understand the forms and effects of organizational
collaborations between individuals, teams, and programs that have been implemented with the goal of
creating more efficient philanthropic entities, as well as more effective philanthropic strategies. Thus, this
study focuses on the emerging types of intraorganizational structures and systems, tools and
technologies, and/or processes and procedures that are being introduced within foundations, either
independently, in lieu of, or in conjunction with interorganizational alliances.
Our initial hypotheses were that (1) intraorganizational collaboration is critical to the efficiency and
effectiveness of any philanthropic foundation, and (2) different forms of intraorganizational collaboration
have different rates and results of impact on organizational processes and performance. Our analysis of
this hypothesis required the consideration of certain essential (and generally overlooked or
underestimated) points, including, for example: Who does what? Who goes where? What are their
positions? Who works with whom? Who talks with whom? What resources do they need? What
constraints do they have? What is expected of each person? What is demanded of them? What are they
accountable for? What are they rewarded for? To these queries about a foundation’s operations,
contextualizing questions were then added about its objectives, such as: What does the foundation
purport to do? What are its goals and objectives? How does it accomplish that work? How does it deliver
on its promises, and how well?
Combining these dimensions of inquiry, then, the overall question driving this study has been:
How are emerging forms of intraorganizational collaboration within philanthropic foundations affecting
the processes of grantmaking entities and the performance of grantmaking strategies?
What we found in trying to answer this, however, is that it is too early to ask the “how” question. The
relative newness of such intraorganizational models to the field of philanthropy has not allowed enough
time to pass to test the effects of such models. Thus, we have settled on answering the more preliminary
“what” question:
What are the emerging forms of intraorganizational collaboration
within philanthropic foundations?

From there, we have attempted to extrapolate “whether” these forms have any implications for
grantmaking:
Are these forms of intraorganizational collaboration having an effect on the processes of grantmaking
entities and the performance of their grantmaking strategies?
1.1 Approach and structure of the study

This study seeks to avoid the limitations of “prescriptive” conceptions that stipulate what forms
intraorganizational collaboration should take. Instead, while confident about the potentially positive effects
that intraorganizational collaborations can have on the processes and performance of grantmaking
entities and their strategies, this study begins with a more agnostic set of assumptions about what forms
intraorganizational collaboration could take. These assumptions freed us to explore, rather than evaluate,
the models of intraorganizational collaboration, using inductive and impartial methods of data collection
and analysis to address the above hypotheses and answer the ensuing questions in an unbiased, non-
judgmental manner.
As an exploratory study, this is not a comprehensive analysis of the field of philanthropic
organizations. And, as such, we used semi-structured data collection protocols to delve deeply, using a
small sample of foundations, rather than broadly with a large sample. The information was gathered from
interviews with 29 representatives of 17 foundations and from conversations with nine philanthropy
consultants and/or researchers. The names of all the foundations have been anonymized by the author in
order to encourage candor and protect the identities of the foundations and their staff. Also, identifying
characteristics such as mission statements, program area names, and project lists have been
paraphrased rather than quoted precisely to avoid revealing inadvertently the foundation’s identity.
The sample of foundations was constructed using purposive sampling methods, so as to ensure that
the all of the foundations had some experience with intraorganizational collaboration within them, but
significant differences on other organizational dimensions between them. Thus, as small and
incomprehensive as our sample may be, the foundations explored represent a range of different
organizational types, sizes, geographies, purposes, approaches and foci. The sample of consultants and
researchers were identified using “snowball,” or referral, sampling methods. They all have extensive
expertise with issues of organizational change and/or development as they apply directly to the
philanthropic sector, and were consulted for the purposes of our own theoretical and factual edification.
Interview data were supplemented with data collected from foundation documents, including annual
reports, budget memos, grantmaking guidelines, etc.
Although the forms and effects of intraorganizational collaboration varied across the sample, the
interviews often revealed large areas of agreement about the need for, the difficulties of, and the issues
with intraorganizational collaboration. The result is a collection of stories about foundations’ unique
experiences with intraorganizational collaboration from which some general themes can be identified, but
from which generalizable statements cannot be made. It should also be noted that we ourselves have
questions about the reliability, objectivity, and validity of the data collected. In addition to problems of
reporting bias and informant distortion common to these types of methods, the opacity and complexity of
the topic resulted in the respondents’ sometimes conflating and confusing the notion of intraorganizational
collaboration with other terms or tactics.
To control for these liabilities, multiple perspectives were sought in each foundation when possible,
and multiple readings and cleanings of the interview transcripts were conducted as required. Thus, we
are confident that this preliminary but empirical study informs our understanding of which particular
models of intraorganizational collaboration could be adopted. Moreover, the results of this study lay the
groundwork for future inquiries into how various types of intraorganizational collaboration should be
adapted by foundations in order to achieve the greatest impact on the processes of these grantmaking
entities and the performance of their grantmaking strategies.

2. The Emergence of Intraorganizational Collaboration
According to the Drucker Foundation’s recent publication, Meeting the Collaboration Challenge
1
Workbook (2002), the term “collaboration” refers to “relationships that provide opportunities for mutual
benefit and results beyond what any single organization or sector could realize alone.” Applying this term
to an intraorganizational context, we have modified that definition to refer to “relationships that provide
opportunities for mutual benefit and results beyond what any single individual, discipline, program, team
or other sub-organizational unit of work could realize alone.”
2.1 The need for intraorganizational collaboration

The modern foundation appeared as an organization at the turn of the 20th century, founded on
personal monies and organizational models rising from the Industrial Revolution. Informed by Fordist
theories of assembly line production, the entity of the modern foundation, like the modern corporation,
was initially (and generally continues to be) organized around and divided into narrow and bounded
program areas. Moreover, the strategies of most foundations have been and still are determined almost
entirely by fixed projects, budgets and staff assignments that are generally allocated between, rather than
integrated across, these structural divisions. The result of such entities and strategies is similar to what
one also observes within the university, where every section of the production line — in this case, each
disciplinary unit, or “department” — has a very specific focus or function that it is expected to perform in
perpetuity of itself and in isolation from others.
As Albert-László Barabási writes in his new book Linked: The New Science of Networks (2002),
“reductionism was the driving force behind much of the 20th century’s research … Therefore, for decades
we have been forced to see the world through its constituents. … Now we are close to knowing just about
everything there is to know about the pieces. But we are as far as we have ever been from understanding
2
… as a whole. … The reason is simple. Riding reductionism, we run into the hard wall of complexity.” As
a result of the new dimensions of complexity, scale and uncertainty that have now cropped up, calls to
expand and transcend the boundaries of disciplines — from the public and private sectors, funding
agencies and researchers themselves — have escalated. What they have realized is that horizontal,
cross-boundary thinking in corporations, academia, philanthropy and beyond is not only co-equal to
3
vertical, bounded thinking; it is its completion, its required partner in the dance.
The Network Era, as Barabási calls it, in which we are now firmly ensconced, has magnified the limits
of Fordism and reductionism; the resistant and residual effects of the Industrial Age mentality are still
obvious in the approach – or lack thereof – that academia has taken to interdisciplinary research and
philanthropy to interprogrammatic grantmaking.
Monodisciplinary departments and studies continue to thrive in the university, just as "siloized"
program areas and grantmaking do in the foundation. While these bounded, traditional structures and
strategies of modern foundations may have once served theoretical propositions and practical purposes,
they now impede the innovation and implementation of networked approaches to philanthropy,
hamstringing foundations’ ability to respond systematically as well as systemically to everyday problems
and major crises alike.
It is our belief that the introduction of different forms of intraorganizational collaboration – ranging
from interprogrammatic funds and cross-cutting initiatives to interdisciplinary teams and integrated
systems – can help foundations improve their grantmaking processes and performance in one or more of
the following ways:
1
Peter Drucker, James Austin, and Frances Hesselbein, 2002, Meeting the Collaboration Challenge Workbook:
Developing Strategic Alliances Between Nonprofit Organizations and Businesses (New York: Peter F. Drucker
Foundation for Nonprofit Management).
2
Albert-László Barabási, 2002, Linked: The New Science of Networks (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing), 6.
3
Denise Caruso and Diana Rhoten, April 2001, “Lead, Follow, Get Out of the Way: Sidestepping the Barriers to
Effective Practice of Interdisciplinarity. A New Mechanism for Knowledge Production and Re-Integration in the Age of
Information,” Hybrid Vigor White Paper, < http://www.hybridvigor.net/interdis/pubs/index.html> [accessed May 19,
2002].

• Enhance organizational learning and innovation by increasing the sharing and exchange of
information about a foundation’s different initiatives across program boundaries. This will require
conceptualizing new ways for capturing, archiving, tracking, synthesizing, and disseminating
organizational knowledge.
• Enhance specific foundation initiatives where financial and technical coordination, and/or
collaboration between program areas, could fund collective solutions that treat all rather than part
of the problem, and that effect change in an integrated rather than compartmentalized manner.
This will require constructing new ways for individuals and institutions to create a common ground
for program selection, financing, administration, and assessment.
• Isolate opportunities and resources for incubating ideas and creating networked activities
between different programs and positions within the foundation, in order to develop treatments
that are informed about, as well as responsive to, the increasingly complex social, political,
cultural, economic environment of the world in which we live. This will require creating new types
of professional structures, arrangements, and relationships, as well as setting aside new pockets
of monies for non-categorical purposes.
While more segmented structures and segregated agendas may have suited foundations reasonably
well thus far, the complexity of today’s problems may not be so well served by the compartmentalized
methods of yesterday’s philanthropy. It is our opinion that, at this time, the philanthropic community's
biggest challenge is figuring out how to connect its many "silos" of knowledge, activity, and resources in
order to create "networks" of synergy that have catapulted some of the community's for-profit
organizational kin to new levels of productivity, efficiency and efficacy.
2.2 The reasons behind intraorganizational collaboration

From the data collected here, it appears that foundations share several dominant and overlapping
rationales for investigating and/or implementing intraorganizational collaborations, some in response to
the needs identified above and others not. These rationales have been aggregated and summarized in
the following four objectives, all of which focus on changing the processes of grantmaking entities in order
to improve the impact of grantmaking strategies:
• Improve efficiency by merging programs and consolidating expertise in fewer, more integrated
areas that best serve the foundation’s mission, rather than in several, tangentially related areas
that dilute the foundation’s mission;
• Improve efficiency by integrating content-oriented and function-based skills across program
areas through horizontal mechanisms, rather than isolating them in through hierarchical
structures;
• Improve effectiveness by enhancing staff learning, expanding the nature of their work
experience, and empowering them with the resources to make an impact; and,
• Improve effectiveness by creating a network of both specialized and “generalizable” knowledge
that enables the foundation to respond to complex problems (new and old) within the realm of its
mission in a holistic, integrated manner.
As we shall see, for all of the foundations in our sample, the common end goal, despite what might be
a slightly different initial objective and even a completely different intermediate model, has been to
increase the efficiency and effectiveness of grantmaking by concentrating resources in service of a few
integrated targets of interest rather than dispersing them in support of a multitude of distinct program
areas.

3. The Forms of Intraorganizational Collaboration
The range of intraorganizational collaboration models was broader than we initially anticipated, and
also more idiosyncratic than we had assumed. Some have emerged from a particular historical context;
some have responded to a current set of circumstances. Some have grown organically from longstanding
work relations; some have been imported with the arrival of new leadership. Some are the products of
methodical inquiry; some are the byproducts of spontaneous interest. Some are formal; some are
informal. Some involve cross-functional teams; others cross-organizational themes. Some emphasize
financial contribution; others expect personal commitment.
3.1 Criteria and characteristics of intraorganizational collaboration

The table below offers a preliminary set of criteria and an array of associated characteristics by which
we organized our thinking about intraorganizational collaborations. The table is followed by a more
detailed explanation of these criteria and characteristics.
Criteria Characteristics
Origin Staff initiative Executive inspiration Strategic review
Incorporation Mission statements Core tasks Special opportunities
Instantiation Formal procedures Informal processes Non-formal practices
Span Intra-programmatic Inter-programmatic Cross-organizational
Unit Individual Team, committee, etc Program, department, etc
Directionality Vertical Horizontal Vertical & horizontal
Demands Primary role/ responsibility Secondary role/ responsibility Voluntary role/ responsibility
Commodity General information Program objectives/ goals Grant administration/ funds
Mode Daily activities Events &/or meetings Chance & happenstance
Mechanism Interpersonal relations Informational exchanges Organizational systems
Object/ive Program themes Organizational changes Grantmaking projects

3.1.1 Definition of terms for criteria
3.1.1.a Origin refers to the person or event that has served as the point of initiation for any
discussions and/or actions related to intraorganizational collaboration activities
within the foundation.
3.1.1.b Incorporation relates to the organizational levels and/or components in which any
discussions and/or actions related to intraorganizational collaboration activities are
evident and observable within the foundation.
3.1.1.c Instantiation, in contrast to incorporation, points to the degree to which the
foundation has systematized any discussions and/or actions related to
intraorganizational collaboration into its organizational practices or processes.
3.1.1.d Span indicates the breadth of the intraorganizational collaboration activities that are
being discussed and/or enacted, from simply extending across projects within one
program area to spanning all programs within the whole organization.
3.1.1.e Unit identifies by whom such activities are to be implemented and carried out, be it
individual program staff or committees of program staff.
3.1.1.f Directionality pertains to whether discussions and/or actions related to
intraorganizational collaboration focus on activities that seek to connect the
foundation via projects that cut across different program areas, and/or activities that
seek to flatten the foundation with projects that join different functional units/levels.
3.1.1.g Demands imply the level of priority that discussions and/or actions related to
intraorganizational collaboration have assigned to such activities in the workload as
compared to and in the context of other staff roles and responsibilities.
3.1.1.h Commodity refers to the goods or products through which the activities put forth in
any discussions and/or actions related to intraorganizational collaboration are
occurring.
3.1.1.i Mode points to the nature and frequency of events or incidences through which the
activities put forth in any discussions and/or actions related to intraorganizational
collaboration are being pursued by actors within the foundation.
3.1.1.j Mechanism suggests the nature of the processes that enable the activities put forth
in any discussions and/or actions related to intraorganizational collaboration to
happen within the foundation.
3.1.1.k Object/ive applies to the target and/or goals of the activities that have been put forth
in any discussions and/or actions related to intraorganizational collaboration within
the foundation.
3.2 Typological models of intraorganizational collaboration

The following typology, which has emerged from, rather than been applied to, the data, provides an
overview of different models of intraorganizational collaboration, and is based primarily on the different
structural and cultural forms that intraorganizational collaboration have taken in our sample of
foundations. Six key models have been identified on this basis. However, each of these models has
various iterations due to the different ways in which the above criteria and characteristics of
intraorganizational collaborations actually cluster around these different structural and cultural forms.
Models of intraorganizational collaboration can and do differ across many variables, even beyond
those presented here. Thus, this typology may be of only limited value without further study, using (1) a
larger sample and inferential statistics to address questions about the stability, reproducibility, and
"generalizability" of these models across the field of philanthropic organizations, and (2) a small sub-

sample and more “thick description” ethnography to clarify the complexity of the issues and to ensure the
reliability, objectivity, and validity of the data.
Nevertheless, as a starting point, this typology serves our purposes by identifying the dominant
organizational models of intraorganizational collaboration as well as by illustrating the variations in key
characteristics between them. However, “rather than a linear continuum, the types presented below might
be best described as occupying distinctive niches within a larger ecology of philanthropic approaches and
4
tools.” That said, one might consider the models in this typology to be arranged from the more superficial
to the more substantial forms of intraorganizational collaboration.
3.2.1 The Personal Interest Model

This first model in our typology refers to a form of intraorganizational collaboration that has not been
formally incorporated into the traditional structure of the foundation. In this model, collaboration depends
on personal interests and interactions and not on organizational processes and procedures. While
examples of this model may differ along some dimensions, the common and predominant features of the
model are captured in the following description.
Collaboration in this model is generally not a required or expected part of staff roles or
responsibilities, but depends in large part on staff's personal initiative. Collaboration tends to be driven by
chance and happenstance, and to occur primarily via informal processes and "non-formal" practices on a
project-by-project basis. For example, a staff member may champion a proposal or project, either in an
opportunistic quest for monies or in a serendipitous search for partners. The object as well as the
objective of this type of collaboration is generally reactive, project-based joint-grantmaking activities
rather than proactive, organization-wide strategic planning actions.
The first example of the Personal Interest Model of intraorganizational collaboration is found in the
private Phrankel Foundation, which was established mid-20th century. Although a large foundation as
measured by assets (about $4 billion), the Phrankel Foundation is small in terms of the number of
program staff (about 20) managing the organization’s seven very diverse program areas, which range
from education and community development to performing arts and population. According to members of
the executive staff, “the strongest rationale for keeping the staff so small is collaboration.” This is
because, at the Phrankel Foundation, collaboration depends on “collegial interchanges” rather than
organizational infrastructures. As one senior staff member reported, “most of the collaboration that goes
on here happens as a result of a lot of hall-walking and with a result that is sort of like horse trading.” And,
one program director recounted that a certain amount of joint grantmaking between his and other
programs has occurred because he “went around looking for where there could be a link and where there
could be support for his program’s work.”
As non-formal as such practices might be, the effects of collaboration are noticeable. For example, at
the turn of the 21st century, 33 of the grants (44% of the total projects, approximately 35% of the total
grant monies) administered by one of the foundation’s seven program areas were developed in
collaboration with other program areas. Project topics ranged from the use of distance education
technologies in developing countries to environmental work in border regions and comparative migration
studies.
Collaboration at the Phrankel Foundation also occurs through informal processes, including the
exchange of documents between program directors, and the collective participation of program directors
in docket meetings. One staff member summarized this aspect of collaboration by saying: “These
opportunities for teamwork are informal and voluntary, but they are key to the way the Foundation works
because even where we are not doing joint grantmaking, we are collaborating intellectually.”
Beyond the long-term personal and professional relationships that seem to enable informal and non-
formal collaboration between program directors at Phrankel, collaboration has also been advanced by the
unique and formalized position of the Fellow. Established a few years ago, the Foundation’s Fellow
4
Ralph Hamilton, February 27, 2002, “Moving Ideas and Money: Issues in Funder Collaboration” (Prepared for
The Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities), 5.

Program has become “a trigger for new collaborations as well as a lever of old ones.” Currently, four
Fellows serve one-year appointments in a variety of assignments, ranging from helping the Foundation’s
president on philanthropic issues and developing the Foundation’s due diligence processes, to helping
focus various program issues. In these formal positions, the Fellows play informal boundary-crossing
roles, working across the organization and cross-fertilizing between different people and programs like
the Foundation’s “honeybees".
Because “problems no longer meet the structure of the organization,” the Foundation has been
actively looking for ways to increase interprogrammatic collaboration. As a result but “without forcing the
issue,” says the Foundation’s president, Phrankel has identified what it considers to be several promising
areas of future collaboration that could cut across the Foundation’s program areas, including projects
related to: universal basic education, community nonprofit space, and environmental mediation and
consensus building. Whether and how collaboration around these projects is structured (or not) into the
processes and procedures of the organization will depend on the outcomes of an organizational review
now two years underway. The question on everyone’s mind is whether or not collaboration should and will
be more formalized at Phrankel, given that it has worked so well casually.
The case of the Bickert Family Foundation, also founded in the middle of the last century, is a similar
but different story of the Personal Interest Model. However, it is less a success story and more a troubled
tale about intraorganizational collaboration. According to the Foundation’s publications and personnel, the
Bickert Family Foundation focuses the majority of its grantmaking in the areas of peace, population, and
the environment, “with special emphasis on projects that explore the interconnections between these
three categories.” And, while the Foundation “actively encourages collaboration between agencies,
institutions and/or foundations” from its applicants, it has not invested in the development of any formal
mechanisms to enable collaboration between the individuals and programs of its own organization.
All proposals submitted to the Bickert Family Foundation are received by the central administrative
office, reviewed by non-program related staff, and then assigned to the relevant program area. As a result
of this process, the staff have found that some proposals were “being bounced back and forth” between
program areas because “they don’t quite fit squarely into one or another.” However, rather than altering
the process altogether, the staff implemented the informal practice of categorizing some proposals as
“cross-cutting.” However, as one senior staff member admitted, this was a “staff attempt at a solution to
the problem, but not a particularly successful one.”
The problem is that all funding approvals are made by a board-level committee process at Bickert,
and, while there is an executive committee for each of the three primary grantmaking areas, there is not a
“cross-cutting” executive committee. As a result, the “cross-cutting” proposals tend to fall through the
cracks [because] they don’t have an advocate beyond organizational staff. There is no one really pushing
for it at the board level … so, they tend to become orphans.” Consequently, as all funding decisions are
made by executive committee, the Foundation’s ad hoc practice of trying to emphasize interconnections
between programs through informal “cross cutting” practices has “actually turned out to be a
disadvantage rather than an advantage.”
The senior staff at the Bickert Family Foundation are aware that this Personal Interest Model of
intraorganizational collaboration compromises, or at least contrasts with, the Foundation’s founding vision
and values for interdisciplinary and intraorganizational collaboration. With recent changes to the Board of
Directors, the Foundation’s current non-formal practices of collaboration will either give way to more
formal procedures or cease altogether, depending on “the level of personal attention that the new
members are willing to give it or not.”
3.2.2 The Underlying Issue Model

Like the Personal Interest Model, the Underlying Issue Model of intraorganizational collaboration
tends to flourish in small foundations and is generally not embodied in the organizational structure of a
foundation, although it may be embedded in its culture. However, unlike the Personal Interest Model,
collaboration tends to be incorporated into the foundation’s philosophies rather than simply enacted by its
staff. As such, this form of intraorganizational collaboration is often more planned but is somewhat less
deliberate. A generalized description follows.

The central point of collaboration in this model is not financial or administrative, but informational and
intellectual. Collaboration is about organizational learning and collective vision, not individual programs or
personal projects. Collaboration happens primarily through exchanges that are part of, rather than apart
from, the foundation’s overall mission and the staff’s daily work. Nevertheless, collaboration does not
depend on formal procedures or structures as much as is it does informal processes. Collaboration is not
an opportunity to be seized on a project-by-project basis, but is instead an agenda that informs,
coordinates, and unites the various activities and different areas within (and sometimes even beyond) the
walls of a foundation.
The first example of this model of intraorganizational collaboration is found in the small private
Reimner Foundation. Founded mid-century, the mission of the Reimner Foundation is to "develop its
community by supporting capable, community-based nonprofit organizations that serve all people in the
region." The Reimner Foundation organizes its work between six general grantmaking program areas
(e.g., arts and humanities, community service, health and mental health, law and justice, etc.) and four
nonprofit advancement activities that focus on needs such as management assistance, technology
support, and capacity building. It has also sponsored two distinct and separate initiatives dedicated to
building the strength and network community-based nonprofit organizations.
According to one senior staff representative, the Reimner Foundation has a very “traditional
organizational structure, with several specific program areas and each program officer having his or her
own bailiwick.” However, according to this same staffer, ”There is a lot of flexibility in the structure and a
lot of cross-talk despite the structure because the underlying, unifying theme in everything that the
foundation does is about how to strengthen the nonprofit sector.” Consequently, he explained that while
the organization may seem very segmented from the outside, it is very connected on the inside. The
organization’s internal connectivity is fostered by a culture of communication that promotes “constant
cross-program discussion ” and is strengthened by a dependence on information that has prompted the
Foundation’s development of mechanisms such as roundtables and learning circles. Both of these forums
are designed to serve the needs of the Foundation’s external clients, as well as connect the work of its
internal staff, by building their knowledge about and skills in the nonprofit sector through ongoing learning
experiences and peer-to-peer mentoring networks. “It is all about collaboration, inside and out,” said one
staff member.
The Health for Life Foundation houses another example of this type of intraorganizational
collaboration. THLF was created at the end of the last century, as a result of the conversion of one of the
country’s HMOs from nonprofit to for-profit status. In the last decade, the foundation has evolved through
three distinct generations and three different strategies of grantmaking. The first generation was a “must
spend” strategy, implemented immediately after the conversion. In the mid-1990s, THLF grantmaking
morphed into a second generation and a “multiyear initiative” strategy, by which 70% of its total givings
went to five long-term projects (each five to 10 years in scope); the remaining 30% was channeled
through five priority areas and a substantial Special Projects Fund. In the late 1990s, just as the previous
generation’s five-year projects were expiring, the arrival of a new executive vice president and several
new board members sowed the seeds of the Foundation’s next grantmaking strategy by looking ex post
facto for “cross-over learning opportunities” between these projects. From the ensuing 18-month
discovery process, a third generation of “responsive” grantmaking was developed and implemented in
July 2000, with the first grants awarded in December 2001.
This current grantmaking strategy is based on three principles: (1) Stay with a fairly limited number of
initiatives; (2) have very minimal guidelines for the Foundation’s priority areas; and (3) establish cross-
cutting coherence across the priority areas. With these principles in mind, THLF’s strategy addresses
eight areas, which includes programs focusing on issues from environmental health and mental health to
violence prevention, teenage pregnancy, aging, and work, plus the Special Projects Fund. Underlying
and tying these eight areas are five common cross-cutting themes: underserved populations, youth,
sustainability, public policy, and leadership. The coherence that these themes are intended to bring to the
foundation’s work is enhanced by the constant “cross-program exchanges” that are part of formal staff
meetings and retreats, as well as informal staff networking and site visits. As one staff member stated,
“there is much more incentive to talk to each other than in the initiative days when the job of grantmakers
was more narrowly focused and [they] did not need to learn from one another.”

The Underlying Issue Model of intraorganizational collaboration is also reinforced by staff and project
evaluation processes at THLF. First, although there are not yet any “specific measures of collaboration” in
staff performance reviews, “informal consideration is given to this in the narrative section of a staff’s
evaluation.” Second, program directors are now being encouraged to do some informal project evaluation
and to present results at board meetings as “this is not only an excellent way to get evaluation done, it is
an even better way for staff to do collaborative cross-learning.”
A third iteration of this model of intraorganizational collaboration can be found in the case of the
Stonewater Foundation. In 2001, the Foundation appointed its new president and CEO, who brought to
Stonewater lessons learned from his previous experiences working in some of the largest foundations in
the country. It was because of this experience, says Stonewater’s president, that he immediately set to
framing and focusing the work of the Foundation in the way that he did: through the wide-angle lens of
social and economic justice. According to him, “this reorganization is my pet project … to transcend the
issues so that the insight as well as the money of one program will be used in conjunction with that of
another.”
In contrast to establishing a separate “interaction” initiative or fund for collaboration as he had seen
the other, larger foundations do, the Foundation's new president decided to use common, overarching
ideas to produce “inter-reactions” across all programs. Unlike the previous two examples, however, this
adaptation of the Underlying Issue Model is as much about the coordination of money as it is about the
communication of information. In this version of the model, all proposals will/should be prepared with
attention to this overarching theme, and they all will/should be collectively paid by all, or at least several,
of the programs. In just the period of transition to this new model, already 20-30% of the projects granted
involve the “resources as well as the expertise” of multiple programs. The advantages of this model of
intraorganizational collaboration can be seen in the example of a recent proposal received by the
Stonewater Foundation to counter the deleterious effects of commercialism in the schools, which touched
several of the Foundation’s different programs. In the Personal Interest Model of collaboration, such a
proposal would run the risk of not finding a champion.
In the Underlying Issue Model, programs and people within foundations tend to be more united in
their objectives, rather than divided by their issues as is common in the Personal Interest Model. Thus,
we suspect that Underlying Issue projects have greater potential to rise to higher levels of coherence and
funding, instead of falling through the cracks between programs and people that is common to Personal
Interest.
3.2.3 The Secondary Engagement Model

The Secondary Engagement Model is the first in our typology where collaboration is actually
incorporated into the organizational structure of a foundation. However, despite some level of structural
accommodation, while intraorganizational collaboration of this type is often conveyed as a principal
feature of the organization’s mission, it is generally not construed as a core function of the organization’s
work. Rather it is often seen, at best, as a complementary objective or, at worst, a subsidiary task to staff
primary roles and responsibilities within a foundation’s core program areas. This is a critical distinction
from the models that follow.
In the Secondary Engagement Model, collaboration is usually implemented as a special initiative. It
tends to be inter-programmatic in span and to occur via extra-programmatic committees and work
assignments that are often above and beyond the staff’s primary roles and responsibilities. While often
initiated at the inspiration of senior leadership, collaboration is not always financially or structurally
supported at the executive level. As a consequence of these two characteristics, collaboration is often not
actively practiced by staff. The objectives of collaboration seem to be based upon a vision of
organizational integration; however, the objects of collaboration seem to be limited to joint grantmaking
schemes and cross-cutting themes.
The first instance of this model of intraorganizational collaboration is found in the Cogen Group
Foundation, which was established in the first half of the 20th century around a handful of distinct
program areas. After the number of, and divides between, program areas grew throughout the century,
Cogen underwent an organizational transition in the mid-1990s and developed four central themes, which

addressed technology, leadership, diversity, and community development, cutting across the various
program areas. These themes were identified as critical to the Foundation’s activities and were intended
to link the Foundation’s five core program areas, which range from health to youth and education to
philanthropy and volunteerism and regional development. The idea was that these “cross-cutting themes”
would increase the Foundation’s coherence and consequently its efficiency, if not also its effectiveness,
by encouraging and enabling different programs to benefit from each other’s knowledge, experiences,
and lessons along these common dimensions.
Collaboration around these themes was organized and formalized around four “cross-cutting theme”
committees, with staff from each of the five different program areas required to sit on at least one, but
perhaps more, of them. To encourage collaboration, the Foundation initially created pools of money for
each of the committees to manage. However, within the first five years of their existence, the Foundation
decided to remove these resources from their control, purposefully transforming the cross-cutting theme
committees from “grantmaking bodies” into “learning nodes.“ According to one senior staff member, the
Foundation did this because “the bulk of the organization’s grantmaking had actually become more
'siloized’ with the initial committees, where the intent was to make it more integrated.”
However, when Cogen relieved these committees of their financial levers, it did not also relieve them
of their workloads. Consequently, as one staff described the situation, “these committees with limited
power are manned by grantmaking and administrative staff with little time, given the work-related
pressures and priorities of their program assignments.” Thus, as with many matrix organizations, the
Foundation’s trade-off with this model of intraorganizational collaboration has been the implementation of
a formally structured way to "link" its programs at the cost of “some frustration and much fatigue due to
the extra burdens of work.”
In addition to its cross-cutting theme committees, Cogen has also implemented “cross-organizational
efforts” or “cross-programming work.” Unlike the cross-cutting theme committees, the cross-programming
work initiatives were developed as a Cogen Group "special opportunity for programming." To date, only
one initiative has been successfully designed, developed and delivered.
The difference between the committees and this effort runs deeper than the semantics of titles or the
sources of funds, however. The key difference is that, unlike the cross-cutting committees, the current
cross-programming work initiative has been interpreted as a priority at all levels of the foundation. Senior
staff argue that this difference is explained by the personal and financial support that the initiative
received from on high, but that the committees did not. The significance of this difference is emphasized
by the fact that Cogen tried a second cross-programming work initiative, which, unlike the first, was a
5
“pay-to-play” rather than a “paid-to-play” version of the Foundation’s cross-organizational effort. Like the
unfunded committees, this effort soon shriveled under the pressures of inter-programmatic turf wars and
extra-programmatic work demands.
A second account of the Secondary Engagement Model is told from the perspective of the Kastorff
Elsinore Foundation, created at the turn of the 20th century. In fiscal year 2000-2001, Kastorff Elsinore
advanced a number of the strategies as outlined by the Foundation’s president. In addition to four core
program areas (e.g., education, development, etc.), the president outlined strategies to support a special
individual’s program and a special opportunities fund.
In a public paper, the Foundation’s president stated that the special opportunities fund was to be a
“vehicle for making grants outside the regular program areas and for encouraging cross-program
collaboration.” However, despite the Foundation’s public information and even professional reputation,
Kastorff Elsinore has become an example of the problems rather than the promises of the Underlying
Issue Model of intraorganizational collaboration. According to an interview conducted with one of the
Foundation’s executive staff, “Things have changed a lot since the publishing of that paper. … There is
some collaboration now, but nothing formal. …” In addition, there are, as planned, some interdisciplinary
initiatives funded under the Foundation’s special opportunities fund. However, and not necessarily as
5
“Pay-to-play” refers to a form of co-programming or co-funding that requires program areas to contribute funding
from their own budgets to support the operational and/or grantmaking expenses of collaborative activities. “Paid-to-
play” refers to an alternative form, where program areas can actually offset the costs of a project by collaborating with
other programs.

planned, although the interdisciplinary initiatives often fall outside the regular program areas, they do not
really require cross-programmatic collaboration. As one senior staff member stated, there is generally just
“some informal discussion between programs on the front end, but not formal collaboration on the
financial end" for initiatives stemming from this fund.
The difference between what was planned and what was implemented around collaborative
programming at Kastorff Elsinore was explained in terms of staff time. Two key things were mentioned.
First is the fact that there were a lot of new staff at the Foundation, and getting them up to speed quickly
enough to manage and operate the four core program areas prohibited engaging in the more time-
consuming and “secondary” cross-disciplinary or cross-program initiatives. Second is the fated result of
having the work of cross-program collaboration staffed by committee structure. As we were told “even
though the CEO and the Board really want collaboration, and while many of the colleagues at Kastorff
Elsinore would like to work together, time constraints limit the possibilities unless someone really pushes
it … no one wants to do another committee meeting on top of what they already do.”
In short, the Kastorff Elsinore Foundation, like the Cogen Group Foundation, has implemented this
model of collaboration as a way to educate staff about the interests of the organization by engaging them
in the activities of other programs. Instead, however, it appears that this model has encumbered them
more than it has empowered them.
3.2.4 The Team Player Model

The fourth model of intraorganizational collaboration is what we call the Team Player Model. In
previous models, collaboration between people or groups of people has been mapped onto traditional
foundation arrangements, rather than mapped out as new ones. By contrast, this model of
intraorganizational collaboration necessitates a certain degree of restructuring on the part of the
foundation as the team becomes the fundamental structural and cultural unit of the organization in place
of the program area and/or department. Key characteristics are summarized below.
Collaboration in the Team Player Model is usually the byproduct of an executive decision and a
strategic review. It is considered key to the organization’s core processes and procedures, as well as
central to the staff’s primary roles and responsibilities. And, as such, collaboration does not take away
from or add to the functions and/or operations of the foundation; it modifies them. The focus of
collaboration is not a single project, a special opportunity, or even a specific theme. Rather, the focus is
on the synthesized development and delivery of one (or more) of the foundation’s products or services.
The objectives of this model are far more linear than those we have seen above. The first objective is to
become a more efficient grantmaking entity through the exchange of information, the coordination of
ideas, and the co-mingling of investments via teams within and between programs. Teams seek to
incorporate more tasks than programs do, thus the goal of collaboration is to incorporate both function-
based services and content-oriented skills. The second objective – which is seen as a consequence of
the first – is to become a more effective grantmaking strategist.
The first in a set of three variations on this model is found in one the community development
6
program (CDP) at the Jasper Van der Plum Foundation. Within the CDP, grantmaking focuses on issues
ranging from neighborhood development and public education to mental health and early education, as
well as selected research topics. The CDP was first restructured in the late 1990s, when the
organization’s president then attempted to address the problem of compartmentalization across the
Foundation by merging all program areas into two large, overarching program area collectives. Now, the
process of restructuring has been initiated at the level of the program area, this time by the CDP’s vice
president in order to address the complexities of the problems served and the compartmentalization of
the services provided within this program alone.
6
Because the approach to intraorganizational collaboration is so different between the Van Der Plum Foundation’s
large grantmaking programs, the programs were considered separately as organizations unto themselves in this
study. And, as one senior staff member stated, the first program "is our grand experiment with intraorganizational
collaboration at this point; there is no move afoot at the moment in the second program to go in this direction.”

According to the vice president of CDP, when she arrived a year or so ago, she found within CDP a
very “typical foundation structure within just the program itself, with six program areas and very rigid walls
between them.” From her perspective there were no incentives, but rather barriers to collaboration in
place. The interactions between staff were so minimal that “if and when you called someone upon to look
outside their box, to work collaboratively with another area, it was seen as a bizarre and begrudging
assignment.” In addition to being a structural problem, collaboration — or the lack thereof — was
identified as an intellectual or cultural issue, as there was “no clear, common theoretical, philosophical
backbone to what people were doing and thinking.”
To remedy the situation, parallel tracks of organizational reform are now being implemented.
According to CDP vice president, these reforms are designed to: (1) “blast apart” the program areas and
create strategy groups (e.g., health, education) as the primary unit of work, (2) require each staff member
to work on multiple strategy groups, thereby increasing the number of people with whom each has to
interact, and (3) contextualize the strategy groups within the programs to ensure that they add up to a
coherent and collaborative whole, with “a clear, overarching intellectual framework of underlying themes
and constructs.”
The principal assumption behind the Jasper Van der Plum Foundation’s adaptation of the Team
Player Model within CDP is that the rigid silos between the CDP program areas can be replaced by the
fluid rotation and mixed assignments of staff across strategy groups. However, as this model is still
somewhere between the “advanced planning” and “early implementation” stages, it is too early to
determine whether this assumption is correct. Moreover, because details of how this model will be
deployed have not been fully developed or disclosed (e.g., Will proposals be made to strategy groups?
Will strategy groups make grants?), it is even difficult to describe the specifics of its form, let alone its
effects. Nevertheless, earliest indications are that the staff is “happy to be rid of the artificial divisions
between both the program areas and the functional services,” and that they see these new groups and
the collaborative opportunities they afford as an “important part of the job.”
A second, slightly more advanced but still relatively untested example of the Team Player Model is
found inside the Angelina Foundation. The Angelina Foundation was established in the earlier part of the
20th century as a national philanthropy, and is today one of the largest single-sector focused U.S.
foundations. The Angelina Foundation has always considered itself an interdisciplinary organization.
Historically, it lived up to this interdisciplinary identity by maintaining a small, very diversely skilled staff.
However, as the Foundation’s total assets and its portfolio have grown, so has the organization’s need for
a larger staff to manage them. It was quickly realized that the natural and informal modes of collaboration
that had thrived for so long in the intimate environment of a small foundation were not infinitely scalable.
Consequently, a process of organizational analysis was begun; one that has thus far culminated in the
Foundation’s restructuring itself from “one large cross-cutting team that housed various cross-cutting
efforts to multiple teams that represent various cross-cutting efforts.”
In the last three years, the Foundation has reorganized around its mission, with two overlapping,
overarching collective groups. While this is similar to what the Jasper Van der Plum Foundation did, it is
dissimilar by the fact the two program collectives at Angelina are both related to addressing issues in the
same sector. It is also dissimilar in that the Angelina Foundation has also created 11 Program
Management Teams that operate within, as well as across, each of these two program groups. Each
Program Management Team addresses a topical domain within the realm of the Foundation’s mission
and is responsible for developing specific goals for that domain, as well as strategies to reach that goal.
In fact, each one of the teams has its own 10-15 year strategic plan. It should be noted that, while the
groups are closely articulated with mission of the Foundation and are thus relatively stable, the teams are
flexible so as to evolve with the nature of the problems that the Angelina Foundation addresses, thereby
allowing the Foundation to be proactive to the needs of its grantees.
Each team is comprised of eight to 10 people representing different disciplinary backgrounds and
organizational skills. Program development and program monitoring teams are comprised of people not
only from the two program content groups but also from the Research & Evaluation and the
Communication support groups. Membership on the teams has been dictated primarily by self-selection
on the basis of where staff interests and skills intersect. In addition to the collaboration that this model
fosters within the teams, it also seeks to facilitate collaboration between the teams and between the

groups. Similar to the CDP at Jasper Van der Plum, but on a foundation-wide rather than program-wide
scale, this type of cross-organizational collaboration is enabled by the rotation of individuals between
teams (most staff are members of two or three teams), as well as encouraged by senior management. In
short, as one staff member reported, the organization is “a complex series of simple matrices.”
The teams at the Angelina Foundation have both core grantmaking responsibilities and capacities.
Proposals are received and then deployed by the Office of Proposal Management to the program
management Teams using internal project management procedures and information management
systems. (There is some discussion underway about making the teams’ role in the grantmaking process
more externally transparent.) Each team has a target range of resources, then calculates how it will
allocate them across different projects. As part of the Foundation’s programmatic investment procedure,
each team’s financial commitment is then reviewed and determined by the program executive group. In
addition to each team’s “pipeline budget,” there is also a separate “pot of community funds” from which
each team can pull additional monies to support a collaborative initiative.
Thus, unlike the committees portrayed in both examples of the Secondary Engagement Model, the
teams in this model of intraorganizational collaboration are, as one senior staff member at the Angelina
Foundation described them, the “primary levers of the organizational schemata” and the “key line
structures in the grantmaking process.” Even the performance evaluation system includes new Team
Player Model measures. As one staff member concluded, “collaboration is culturally rooted, financially
supported, institutionally valued and soon, perhaps, personally rewarded.”
The third and final case of the Team Player Model is manifest in the Fourth Quadrant Foundation
(4QF), a regional foundation that was also founded in the early years of the 20th century and, which, until
mid-century, operated like a traditional — some would say “technocratic” —philanthropy. In 1996,
disenchanted with the impact of its 39 distinct programs, the Foundation began looking for more efficient
ways to focus its attentions and use its resources. With the arrival of new board members and executive
leadership, the time for restructuring was opportune. According to the Foundation’s Annual Report, “the
Board put everything on the table to be examined – our core purpose, our values, the role we play, the
way we operate.” And, in the late 1990s, with the culmination of a year-long strategic planning and
information gathering process, the Foundation announced a new mission and three new programs.
4QF's repositioning focused all of the Foundation’s resources on helping the communities in its region
to reduce poverty. It re-armed itself with three new programs all designed to create partnerships with
communities around long-term goals rather than respond to requests from individual institutions for short-
term funds. In addition, 4QF reconfigured its internal operations as a grantmaking entity, or rather, as a
“non-grantmaking entity” according to the Foundation’s president. As a result, of these changes, the
Foundation no longer accepts requests for grants. Instead of a grantmaker, 4QF has positioned itself as a
knowledge broker for its constituents. It also has eliminated individual program officer positions,
reorganizing the staff into teams that are focused on the outcome (decreasing poverty) rather than the
process (grantmaking) of the organization’s philanthropic works.
The Foundation plans to implement seven teams ultimately, each working intensively for up to 10
years in one of the 16 communities it hopes to target. There are currently three communities and three
teams in place. Each team consists of four to five people, including a support person, a grants
administrator, a community liaison (team leader), and one or two experience-based, not discipline-specific
assistant community liaisons. Although staff members are assigned to multiple teams, assignments are
staggered across project life cycles in order that each team works as a consistent and coherent unit in
and with its community. As a result of this new team structure, 4QF staff no longer spend their time
responding to grant proposals and managing portfolios individually, “with episodic transfers of information
between them at best.” Now, according to senior staff, “nothing is done individually; the team even does
fieldwork together.”
According to the Foundation’s president, the “strength of 4QF is built on a diversity of people with a
common mission.” This strength is cultivated not only by the internal collaboration of team members, but
also their external collaboration with other teams inside (as well as other partners outside) the
Foundation. For example, every month the teams prepare and present a report addressing questions
about or aspects of the work that the each team is doing with its community. These reports are shared
with the whole foundation because, as the Foundation president says, “it’s as much about what we learn

from each other as what we do.” To facilitate this type of shared learning, 4QF is in the process of
developing an “internal learning tool,” or team manual, which will help guide each team through the
process of its work with communities, as well as help them map the work of the others in a way that
informs their own.
While the work at 4QF now centers around a formal team structure and culture, the rewards at the
Foundation are still based on individual performance. However, 4QF is making a conscious effort to
migrate toward a “ team-based reward system to support its team-based work structure” (e.g., teams, not
individuals, might earn bonuses). It is too early to give any anecdotal evidence about how this
organizational change and intraorganizational collaboration has improved the Foundation’s grantmaking
performance. However, 4QF is chronicling, through detailed organizational ethnographic methods, the
process and outcomes of this organizational transformation to the Team Player Model. As the president
of 4QF stated, “when the time comes, the information will be there.”
3.2.5 The Catalytic Converter Model

As with the Secondary Engagement Model and the Team Player Model, intraorganizational
collaboration under the Catalytic Converter Model has been formally introduced and incorporated,
although perhaps not instantiated or institutionalized, into the organization’s structure and culture.
However, unlike the Secondary Engagement Model, this model invites, but does not require, staff to
participate in cross-cutting initiatives. And, unlike the Team Player Model, the problem – not the team – is
the core unit of collaboration. The key criteria are summarized below.
Collaboration in this model is always problem-driven, but may also be staff initiated or executive
inspired. The long-term goal of collaboration is to improve both the processes and performance of
grantmaking, but is often more immediately concerned with using collaboration to identify effective
grantmaking strategies rather than establish efficient grantmaking entities. Collaboration in this model is
not achieved through the decentralization of work and/or the reorganization of staff. Instead it is
accomplished through a centralization of efforts and a concentration of experts. While the object of
collaboration is generally a grantmaking project, the objective is to change organizational processes. It is
about developing new ideas, tools, and approaches around a project, and then diffusing them back to the
programs.
Our first example of the Catalytic Converter Model of intraorganizational collaboration is the Raoul
Jones Foundation. Established mid-20th century, the Raoul Jones Foundation today is a multi-
dimensional, multi-layered organization, with seven very distinct and disparate program areas (e.g.,
science, families, arts, local region, etc.), a total 36 subprograms and about 80 program staff between
them. Historically, the Foundation’s subprograms have allowed a certain amount of “opportunistic or
informal collaboration” between programs. One example of this is an after-school arts education sub-
program around which two of the seven program areas have come together. About four years ago, to
encourage more of this type of co-sponsored programming, the Foundation set aside funds in an extra-
judicial budget that programs could leverage if they wanted to co-fund a project that fell outside the focus
of their own area. This resulted in several new collaborations between different program areas, but
generally only across two program areas per project.
In the beginning of the 21st century, in a move that “acknowledges a growing commitment to look for
linkages across program areas,” the Foundation announced the creation of the Cross-Cutting Initiatives
Program (CCIP). According to the Foundation’s president and CEO, the program was “a natural step in
[the Foundation’s] ongoing efforts to integrate and strengthen programs.” And, according to one of the
Foundation’s vice presidents, “there are many opportunities to increase [the Foundation’s] effectiveness
and learn through grantmaking that targets areas of overlap and connection among our programs. The
CCIP will address those areas in the hope that we can have increased impact."
The director of the CCIP explains that he has tried to use this program and his position to “make
cross-cutting grantmaking at the Raoul Jones Foundation more affirmative than reactive” and “to illustrate
different cross-program grantmaking possibilities.” To determine how best to accomplish these goals, he
interviewed approximately half of the Foundation’s program staff to help him identify the proper initiatives
to pursue. The result of this inquiry process led to the creation and implementation of five projects that not

only cut across, but tie together the work of various Foundation programs and subprograms. Rather than
being proposal-centered and/or thematically-focused, these initiatives are all “place-based” and “principle-
driven.” And, in each case, it is both the tools and the content of the project that are being used “to build
more efficient collaborations and design more effective and 'synergized' grantmaking strategies.”
Examples of such projects include, in brief: a knowledge mapping exercise of the needs and services
in the four geographic communities surrounding the Foundation; a scenario planning exercise on civil
society in one country; and, in another, a “hedge” grantmaking initiative to expand current family planning
and reproductive health programs to include energy education and training components. While the hope
is that that each of these projects will yield dividends, the primary objective is to demonstrate to and for
the Foundation the overall added value of the “systems” approach to grantmaking. All of the current
cross-cutting activities are funded by the CCIP budget (approximately $3 million), and none of the
programs participating in any of the collaborative projects is required to commit any of their own monies. It
is neither expected nor required that program staff undertake cross-cutting work, and they are neither
rewarded nor evaluated for their collaborative performance.
The CCIP at Raoul Jones is still very much a work in progress. Thus, while intraorganizational
collaboration has been given a safe place to grow, it has not yet taken root in the organization. But if
interest and investment is any measure, so far it is a big success. As the director of the program
observed, “it is very hard to get meetings in this organization, but I have been able to get all the […]
people in on the scenario planning. … people have been willing and excited to engage.” We believe that
key to this success may be the fact that this adaptation of the Catalytic Converter Model is about, as the
program director says, “meeting people where they are, rather than mandating where they go.” This
model allows people to convert the work of others to the context of their own grantmaking.
The Cecil and Ida Graham Endowment offers a second example of this model. Organized around four
thematic programs addressing issues related to health, culture, communities, and security, the central
mission uniting the work of the Endowment is its commitment to helping people who are poor and
excluded. In addition, the foundation has a formal cross-theme program (CTP) that promotes and
strengthens the connections between these thematic programs. In addition, the Endowment supports a
number of programs that are still developing or remain in transition.
The mission and the work of the Endowment as a whole are articulated to treat problems in their
totality. As one staff member succinctly stated, “the people that the Cecil and Ida Graham Endowment
serves do not live in stovepipes, so the solutions to their problems should not be developed in
stovepipes.” This is not to say that the Endowment’s programs never work independently of one another,
but only to emphasize that no work is ever undertaken without questioning the comprehensiveness of its
approach. One staff member claimed that this holistic approach has always been part of the
Endowment’s philosophy, but may not have become an integral component of its practice had the CTP
not been integrated into the core of the organization.
The role of the CTP is to tackle problems that connect the staff and the constituencies of the
Endowment’s different themes and to discover opportunities that strengthen the linkages between them.
Cross-thematic efforts of the CTP have taken on different forms and centered around different topics such
as: biotechnology, intellectual property rights, trade and development, environmental governance, and
science and policy.
An example of how this model of intraorganizational collaboration works can be seen in the
Biotechnology initiative, which brought together multiple parties in the biotechnology debate to discuss
applications in the field of agricultural sciences. Because of the vastly different perspectives that needed
to be convened, it was believed that one thematic program area alone could not manage this effectively.
Thus, the CTP provided the forum as well as the finances to catalyze a cross-thematic treatment of the
problem. As with all of the Endowment’s cross-thematic initiatives, the CTP’s role as catalyst was set to
expire once the project was developed and could be transitioned to an appropriate thematic program
area. Another, closely intertwined example is the intellectual property rights initiative. Through the
biotechnology initiative, the Endowment found that there was much discussion around intellectual
property rights from colleagues in different thematic program areas. Thus, a cross-thematic team was
established around this focused problem. While each one of the Endowment’s programs is devoted to a
different aspect of this issue, all are developed and coordinate through the collaboration of this team.

As with the Raoul Jones Foundation, the Cecil and Ida Graham Endowment model of
intraorganizational collaboration requires that different programs contribute separate, dedicated staff time
to work on cross-thematic initiatives, rather than having intraorganizational collaboration built directly into
the daily structures and relationships of one’s work. While staff are not yet rewarded based on their
performance within these collaborative initiatives, collaborative work activities are seen as the staff’s
primary roles and responsibilities and collaborative skills are considered in the evaluation process. As one
staff reported, “collaboration is an essential element, not an extra burden” because “we are not
persuaded to collaborate, we are motivated to collaborate.”
However, unlike the Cross-Cutting Initiatives Program at the Raoul Jones Foundation, which has a
“paid-to-play” component, the Cross-Thematic Program at the Cecil and Ida Graham Endowment has a
“pay-to-play” component to its Catalytic Converter Model. Thus, while the CCIP at Raoul Jones
Foundation and the CTP at the Cecil and Ida Graham Endowment both have catalyst money, the sources
as well as the uses of those monies are distinct. At the Raoul Jones Foundation, the money for other
programs to collaborate comes from solely the CCIP budget, and is used only to fund the operational
costs of these collaborations and of the CCIP itself (no grants are made by the CCIP). At the Cecil and
Ida Graham Endowment, operational monies are also budgeted by the CTP, but funds for grantmaking
activities are contributed by the other participating themes. Finally, similar to the Raoul Jones
Foundation’s extra-judicial budget, the Cecil and Ida Graham Endowment has also created a new vice
president’s fund this year to further stimulate more foundation-wide collaboration.
3.2.6 The Integrated Systems Model

The last model of intraorganizational collaboration in our typology is what we call the Integrated
Systems Model. This model is not about inter-programmatic projects, intraorganizational themes, multi-
disciplinary teams, cross-thematic committees, or cross-cutting initiatives. In fact, it is not about inter-,
intra-, multi-, or cross- anything. Instead, it is about establishing trans-programmatic systems. Distinct
from the other approaches, which imply at least the inclusion or at most the interaction of a broad range
of program-based or team-based components, a trans-programmatic systems approach to collaboration
requires their integration.
In this model, collaboration occurs through and is enabled by a common set of axioms and
interactions by which the entire organization operates. Collaboration does not depend on any particular
mechanism but is instead driven by common purpose. Unlike previous models, collaboration is not
approached by reorganizing people into teams or reuniting them through projects. Nor is it accomplished
by coordinating work along underlying themes, pooling monies for common projects, or uniting certain
parts to inform the whole. Collaboration is about the whole. It is about framing a problem, agreeing on a
strategy, and implementing a solution as a symbiotic and synergistic system. The goal of collaboration is
to simultaneously increase both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the organization’s grantmaking.
Two foundations from our sample fit the parameters of this model. They are the Athdar Foundation
and the Zocalo Trust. Since the former has only just been created and the latter very recently re-created,
we cannot yet say much about the effect that that this model of intraorganizational collaboration has had
on the process or the performance of these grantmaking entities and their strategies. Nevertheless,
because the Integrated Systems Model is so innovative by comparison to the others, these foundations’
ideas about how intraorganizational collaboration can systemically change their approach to and results
from philanthropy is a valuable addition to the conversation.
The Athdar Foundation is a new organization created in at the beginning of the 21st century by a
multibillion-dollar contribution from private individuals. The Foundation has implemented four programs
but has only initiated grants in one. As with more traditionally structured foundations, these program
areas are staffed by program officers and program assistants. To combat the “silos” that so commonly
evolve around program areas, however, the Foundation plans to focus on the “sweet spots” between
them. This does not mean just lining up cross-programmatic initiatives across the organization, but rather
looking for converging points of intersection within the organization. An example of the type of “sweet
spot” project that the Foundation might identify, cultivate, and develop at the intersection of the
Foundation’s four program areas could be water contamination and conservation.

To achieve this form of intraorganizational collaboration, a combination of several interacting features
have been designed into the Athdar Foundation, among them a judicious selection of projects and shared
administration of grants, an innovative use of information technologies, and a carefully composed staff.
Instead of an RFP process, the Athdar Foundation identifies the projects on which it will work through a
thorough “investigations process.” This process, in a form similar to a study group, brings together “the
brains out there” to collaborate on a particular issue in order to vet the viability of possible projects.
For example, one recent investigations process brought scientists, environmentalists, fishermen,
conservationists, etc together to discuss what projects could be developed and outcomes achieved using
specific species tracking methods as an indicator of the world’s state of biodiversity. It is still not clear
whether or not the Athdar Foundation will implement a project on specific species tracking, but the
knowledge created and exchanged via this process is itself a product that has furthered the work of the
Foundation. In cases when a project is actually identified through this process, it is then posted on the
Foundation’s Intranet for anyone to raise questions about it. Once a week the system sends out a grants
log with a timetable, and “everyone knows that it is part of their job to look at the log.” Only if and when
staff questions are resolved does the project get approved. As one senior staff member described it, “the
process is about treating everyone on staff as a citizen.” To keep that sense of collaborative citizenship,
the Foundation plans to cap its staff at about 100 and to continue to use the investigations process to
“buy the specific expertise that is already out there as they need it.”
The second example of this model, and the last in our typology, comes from the Zocalo Trust.
Historically, this foundation was not simply divided into various program areas; it was actually separated
into different organizations — one operating, the other grantmaking. While there was one executive
director for both of these organizations, according to that director (now the organization’s Chief Executive
Officer), “there was very little interaction between the two.” As the organizations’ assets increased and the
founders’ personal wealth expanded, it was determined at the end of the twentieth century that the
organization needed to create a new a strategic plan. With the help of a consulting group, the Trust
underwent a 10-month strategic planning process, which involved conducting interviews with more than
200 of the Trust’s constituents ranging from colleagues and friends to grantees. One of the primary points
of discussion during this process was whether Trust could best satisfy “its need for synergy and desire to
conserve resources” with its current organizational structure. The trustees themselves immediately
established the premise that there had to be greater organizational overlap and learning between the
grantmaking and operational components of the Trust.
Based on the feedback garnered during the process, the Trust decided to merge the two
organizations and to organize the new structure around four core services (e.g., communications,
information technology, financial, knowledge management and evaluation) and three issues, or program
areas related to homelessness, substance abuse, and poverty. The Trust’s core services and the
program areas are overseen by the Trust’s “cabinet,” which includes the Trust’s Chief Executive Officer,
Chief Operations Officer, the National Program Director, and the Trust’s Senior Fellow. There is no middle
management in the Trust. While, “admittedly the integration or interconnectedness between operations
and grantmaking is still not entirely clear and has not been implemented yet,” says one of the
organization’s officers, integration and interconnectedness are being encouraged and supported in
several ways, including managerially, strategically, and technologically.
From the managerial perspective, the core services all report to the organization’s Chief Operations
Officer, functioning like “internal consultants across the organization to advise both operations and
grantmaking in service of the programs and to set up things like financial metrics and outcome measures
that unite the work of the two.” As the organization’s Chief Executive Officer stated, the “[Chief Operations
7
Officer’s] job is integration.” In fact, integration is such an essential aspect of the organization that it is
even expressed in the Trust’s mission statement, which “emphasizes the importance of working
collaboratively to inform philanthropic practices.” Whereas the Trust uses these managerial tactics to
integrate operational services and program areas, it strives, from a strategic perspective, to connect “its
three program areas by funding at the intersection of the programs rather than within one versus
another.” Key to pushing forward this objective is the structural arrangement that has created only one pot
of money around which all program officers must confer and from which all programs must be funded.
7
Italics added to reflect speaker’s verbal emphasis.

However, more essential, according to the Trust’s Chief Executive Officer, is the personal relationships
that has allowed this arrangement: “The program officers work completely interdependently of one
another. Each is a subject expert, and even a subject and a function expert when possible, … but each is
also a generalist. We hired very carefully. Consequently, because the program officers work completely
interdependently of one another, it is hard to imagine a program posed by one program officer or another
that would not overlap with others. That was our vision, and our values are paramount, but without the
right people, they would have not worked out.”
Integration management and intersection funding are also supported and encouraged through such
activities like regular “joint staff” meetings and monthly whole staff meetings as well as semi-regular
“lunch and learn” meetings where people from inside as well as outside the Trust speak on topics relevant
to the organization’s programming. According to the Trust’s Chief Operations Officer, “there appears to be
universal interest in the issues being addressed across the two organizations on behalf of the staff, so it is
not hard to encourage participation in the things like the 'lunch and learn' – the only thing mandatory are
the staff meetings, but the rest seem to be happening on voluntary basis.”
Similar to the Athdar Foundation, the Zocalo Trust has also implemented an Intranet to enhance the
Trust’s integration of and intersection between organizational staff and program areas. It seems,
however, that the Zocalo Trust may be adopting this tool with greater “active and interactive uses in mind”
than even the Athdar Foundation. One example of how the Trust uses its Intranet to enhance integration
and intersection is through the creation of virtual “communities of practice” – —groups whose members
regularly engage in sharing and learning, based on common interests. There are currently about 10
established communities of practice at Zocalo, organized around themes which were selected on the
basis of how they relate to the Trust’s areas of work. For each community of practice, there is a
“knowledge coordinator” who oversees the online communication between community members, all of
whom share a common interest in the community’s topical focus (e.g., technology and children) but may
represent internal different program areas and even different external organizations.
In addition to allowing the creation of and facilitating the communication for these communities of
practice, the Trust also uses its Intranet to enhance integration and intersection by increasing
collaboration of individuals and teams through knowledge management and sharing tools. For example,
once a week, the Trust’s three knowledge managers working with the Chief Knowledge and Evaluation
Officer research, prepare and disseminate weekly updates summarizing information relevant to the
Trust’s program interests to the organization via the Intranet. As the Trust’s Chief Knowledge and
Evaluation Officer stated himself: “The attention that is being given to the issue of collaboration at the
Zocalo Trust is encompassed in the very fact that my position and this service even exists. … In the
philanthropic sector, this is very unique. In the corporate world, knowledge management has been widely
used to increase efficiency; in the social change world, there is a different bottom line, the goal is to
increase impact. This new organizational design and the accompanying tools are designed for greater
grantmaking impact as well as better working relations.”
The Athdar Foundation and the Zocalo Trust have taken the steps to organize for change from the
inside out. Although it is too early to how well the pieces of the puzzle have been aligned and the nodes
of the networks linked in the Integrated Systems Model, it is not too early to note that at least the
prototype of intraorganizational collaboration for philanthropy in the Network Era has been designed. As
the Chief Executive Officer at Zocalo Trust concluded, “This is a model that they are tweaking. We need
to see how it works, how it evolves, what it needs.” For example, although the Zocalo Trust, like the
Athdar Foundation, has “actually built collaboration into job descriptions,” neither has yet resolved the
issue of performance rewards for collaboration. Finally, to complete the Integrated Systems Model
design, both the Athdar Foundation and the Zocalo Trust will need to establish their intraorganizational
collaborations in a manner that is reflective of, relevant for, and related to their interorganizational
alliances. The end of this organizational frontier and the beginning of the next is the interface between
these networks.

4. The Conditions of Intraorganizational Collaboration
While the foundations in our sample have followed a series of objectives and yielded a range of
models of intraorganizational collaboration, they were motivated by the common goal of transforming their
grantmaking entities from traditional 20th century silos of activity (A) to innovative 21st century networks
of interactivity (B) so as to improve the impact of their grantmaking strategies on the complex problems of
the world today.
A B
Fragmentation of organizational pieces Alignment of organizational processes
Departmental Programs Team Projects
Narrowly defined jobs/ positions Comprehensively designed jobs/positions
“Individual foot race” “Team triathlon”
Constrained “silos” Distributed “networks”
Isolation Interaction
Control and Competition Communication and Cooperation
Information monopoly Information panoply
Upward mobility Horizontal flexibility
This final section of the study highlights various contextual factors that have influenced the models of
intraorganizational collaboration that have resulted from the foundations in our sample as they have
attempted to transitions from A (silo) to B (network), and the effects that these variables have had on the
forms and effects of these models in terms of the foundations’ grantmaking entities and strategies.
4.1 Intervening variables/ interfering factors

Given the size of our sample and the nature of the data we gathered for this report, our aim is not to
be exhaustive or to draw overarching conclusions about all the conditions and dynamics that shape
intraorganizational collaboration. Rather, we aim to be provocative by introducing for discussion only
those that appear to be most salient and prominent. What follows, then, is a summary of some of the
more relevant variables affecting the form and effects of different intraorganizational collaboration models,
and some practical (and preliminary) "take-aways" for controlling these factors in one’s favor. We hope
that this will serve simply as a starting point for deeper exploration and further extrapolation.
4.1.1. Organizational Size

Exploring the data on this variable presents a two-sided coin — or worse, a double-edged sword. On
one hand, some responses and observations suggest that intraorganizational collaboration is better
suited to smaller foundations, where the trust and familiarity of the environment, as compared to that of
larger foundations, is more conducive to the instantiation of both informal and non-formal modes and
mechanisms of collaboration. However, other responses and observations indicate that the object/ives of
collaboration tend to be better served within larger foundations where, as opposed to smaller foundations,
there is often a broader range of skills and a greater diversity of knowledge available simply by virtue of
there being a bigger staff.
The paradox of organizational size is expressed in the reflections of one staff member from the
Phrankel Foundation, where the Personal Interest Model collaboration has occurred “thanks to the small,
intimate size” of the foundation. He argues that: “The idea of collaboration is enticing. But, with Phrankel’s
small size and small staff, while the logistical difficulties might be less than in a bigger foundation, [the
difficulties] also probably outweigh the benefits. I am just not sure that if the range of skills and

perspectives in this size of a foundation make collaboration worthwhile – I mean, is there really enough
diversity for the trouble. Yet, if we grow for the sake of diversity, we will lose all the informal but essential
collaboration that happens because of our size.”
But, the paradox is not unresolvable. The Angelina Foundation and the Zocalo Trust represent two
foundations that have faced the question of “scalable collaboration” as they have grown. To deal with the
issue, as these two foundations have grown, they have both sponsored and supported the introduction of
“teams” and/or “communities of practice” within the organization as a way to retain the size advantages of
a small organization while gaining the diversity benefits of a larger one.
Teams or communities of practices such as those implemented in these two cases should not be
seen as just more program units reorganized under a different name or as just additional subunits
inserted within existing areas, however. Instead, they should be seen as “mixed meso-units”, which cut
across the foundation’s various program areas and operate outside of their traditional structural
boundaries. As such, these meso-units of 8-15 people — with like interests but diverse knowledge bases
— actually allow for the mixing of qualitatively (different) rather than just quantitatively (more) skills and
perspectives found within a larger organization, without sacrificing the trust and intimacy of a smaller
foundation.
4.1.1.a Take-away 1: Intraorganizational collaboration depends on individuals perceiving

themselves as part of an intimate, personal environment, while being connected to a
diverse, professional network.
4.1.1.b Take-away 2: Intraorganizational collaboration should be designed and developed
around new organizational units, not driven into or dropped onto old structures and
agendas.
4.1.2. Organizational Diversity

Organizational diversity might just be the Chinese puzzle of intraorganizational collaboration. In
addition to being seen as the inverse of size in the intraorganizational collaboration equation, diversity
can also be the impediment to integration. Still, while diversity is often what can negatively complicate the
form of intraorganizational collaboration, it is also what often positively compounds the effects.
The diversity of skills and perspectives of individuals within an organization increases a foundation’s
potential to treat complex problems in a holistic manner, while at the same time increasing the functional
distance between individuals within the organization. Functional distance is a concept that represents the
8
degree of difficulty for personal interaction. The literature identifies functional distance between
departments, divisions, disciplines, etc., that use different vocabularies, concepts, beliefs, methods, and
modes of inquiry as the most significant factor affecting the form and effects of different models of
9
intraorganizational collaboration. In this case functional distance can be taken as a measure of both the
differences as well as the boundaries between program areas and, thus, program staff within a
foundation. In our sample of foundations, the data seem to bear this out.
The steps to instantiating and incorporating intraorganizational collaboration have been easier and
more obvious in foundations with program areas that are completely aligned (e.g., a single-sector
foundation that focuses on health) — for example, the Health for Life Foundation — or closely aligned
(e.g., a twin-sector foundation that focuses on youth development and education), such as the Reimner
Foundation. However, the moves toward intraorganizational collaboration object/ives are often more
innovative (albeit difficult) in foundations where program areas are not so commonly aligned and where
the paths are not so clear (e.g., a multi-sector foundation that focuses on environmental science and
peace studies). An example of the latter can be seen in the Raoul Jones Foundation, where the creation
of a "tour guide" staff position was required to forge the path between the foundation’s disparate
programs, but where the result has been routes into very promising and previously uncharted territories.
8
Sara Kiesler, Pamela Hinds, and Suzanne Weisband, 1998, “Multidisciplinary Collaboration. Proposal to KDIKN
Competition” (Washington, DC: National Science Foundation).
9
Caruso and Rhoten, April 2001, < http://www.hybridvigor.net/interdis/pubs/index.html> [accessed May 19, 2002].

The way for foundations to capitalize on the diversity of skills and perspectives of its staff and to
maximize their interaction is not to simply hire, as so many have said, “one of everything and hope they
interact.” Instead, interaction, and even better yet, integration, depends on a common commitment to a
clearly articulated goal that unites mutual interests and demands particular skills and perspectives. The
importance of the need for individual perspective and collective vision is exemplified by comparing the
example of the Bickert Family Foundation in the Personal Interest Model of intraorganizational
collaboration to the Stonewater Foundation approach in the Underlying Issue Model. In the latter,
collaborative programs tend to be formally designed and designated by the group and, consequently, to
have greater potential for higher levels of coherence and funding than, in the latter, where collaborative
projects tend to informally initiated and indulged by the individual.
The Secondary Engagement Model, like the Underlying Issue Model, is another form of
intraorganizational collaboration that seeks a "ties that bind" approach. However, as we learned by
looking at the examples within these two models, it takes more than a simple collective vision or an extra
committee to maintain these local points of interaction and focal points of integration. Instead, whether
they be underlying issues or cross-cutting themes that convene diverse individuals and program areas,
the demands of work related to these issues and themes must be strategically incorporated into not just
added on to the primary roles and responsibilities of staff. To be viable and valuable, this type of strategic
incorporation requires the level of systematic analysis that was undertaken by the Fourth Quadrant
Foundation and the Zocalo Trust before they embarked on what were described as still tumultuous but
likely more prosperous organizational transformations.
4.1.2.a Take-away 3: Intraorganizational collaboration should select and collect diverse

skills and perspectives, but develop mutual interests and focus on specific targets.
4.1.2.b Take-away 4: Intraorganizational collaboration should be systematically built by and
systemically built into the organization’s processes, not left to ad hoc practices or
adlibbed procedures.
4.1.3. Organizational Authority

The forms and effects of intraorganizational collaboration are also dependent on organizational
authority, both in terms of the structure of hierarchy and the nature of leadership. As obvious as that may
sound, it is surprising how many of those interviewed overlooked or obscured its importance. Foundations
that have experience with flat hierarchies, rules and directives, joint problem-solving procedures, and
group decision-making structures have much greater potential for incorporating and even instantiating
more integrated models of intraorganizational collaboration, which are more formal in procedure, broader
in span, and grander in object/ive.
This is best evidenced in our sample by comparing the Personal Interest Model of intraorganizational
collaboration found in the Bickert Family Foundation with the Integrated Systems Model identified in the
Zocalo Trust. At the Bickert Family Foundation, all of the authority not only lies with the Board, but it does
so in isolation from — not in conjunction with — the responsibilities of the program staff. Comparatively,
“collaboration goes in all directions” at the Zocalo Trust according to one staff members; it has been
framed in the values and founded in the principles of vertical integration and horizontal
interconnectedness.
However, implementing intraorganizational collaboration is not as simple as just being able to turn a
program area on its side; or, as one foundation executive put it, “just turning the stovepipe into a water
pipe.” Instead, it means turning stovepipes into open hearths which may be started and stoked by a few
caretakers but to which all different people are drawn and from which all collective results emanate. Thus,
sophisticated and successful models of intraorganizational collaboration require caretakers or leaders
who have a strategic vision for how to intersect vertically diverse skills and perspectives as well as
managerial talent for how to horizontally integrate various functions and tasks in a manner that meets at
the hearth. This takes a leader who can both foresee the need for individual connections as well as
oversee the performance of the whole collective. It requires leaders who may not have all the skills and
perspectives and can not perform all the tasks and functions themselves, but can put together those who
do — and who has the personal power to inspire them. In short, intraorganizational collaboration requires

leaders who, as Warren Bennis says in Organizing Genius, “may not be able to play Mozart’s First Violin
Concerto [themselves], but they have a profound understanding of the work and can create the
10
environment needed to realize it.”
The importance of this factor was seen most clearly not in the triumphs of any model or example, but
rather in the troubles of the Secondary Engagement Model. This was particularly clear in the example of
the Cogen Group, where staff did not buy into the cross-cutting committee work, because, in the words of
one senior staff, “there was no one empowering them, no one encouraging them to stay integrated.
Intraorganizational collaboration has been as much a leadership challenge as it has been an intellectual
challenge.”
4.1.3.a Take-away 5: Intraorganizational collaboration should be carefully led and mutually

managed.
4.1.3.b Take-away 6: Intraorganizational collaboration depends on leaders who can
empower individuals to power the group.
4.1.4. Organizational Employment

The form and effect of intraorganizational collaborations is dependent in large part on staff experience
and expertise. Staff with more experience working in collaborative or team environments are more likely
to serve naturally as “bridges,” or ties between individuals and program areas, and are thus more likely to
see, consciously or unconsciously, the demands of intraorganizational collaboration as a part of their
primary roles and responsibilities. Consequently, the greater the proportion of staff with collaborative
experience, the greater the likelihood that intraorganizational collaboration will be more formally
incorporated into various organizational modes and mechanisms. Furthermore, the greater the proportion
of staff who have both specialized expertise with generalized knowledge, the more likely that
intraorganizational collaboration will be instantiated in more systemic objecti/ives. However, the extent to
which this model of intraorganizational collaboration can actually be implemented in form and innovative
in effect depends not just on the previous qualifications of the staff but also on the current quality of their
work and their work life. Again, this seems rather obvious on paper, but is actually somewhat obfuscated
in practice.
One example of where these elements are at least being expressed (too early to tell if they have been
established) as conditions shaping the form and hopefully the effect of intraorganizational collaboration is
in the case of the Community Development Program at the Jasper Van der Plum Foundation. According
to the vice president of this program, “it is one thing to have good staff, and it is another thing to know
how to employ good staff.” In terms of good staff for intraorganizational collaboration, she is less
interested in “anyone’s specific content expertise than in their ability to connect it to more general policy
and action.” In terms of good employment for intraorganizational collaboration, “it is less about financial
reward and more about personal motivation and social accountability … increasing the joy of working by
expanding the understanding of how one’s work contributes to and impacts the work of the whole.” This
motivation reflects Warren Bennis’s observation that collaboration requires people who “believe that they
are doing something vital, even holy … [who] know that they are doing something monumental,
11
something worthy of their best selves.”
That said, it would be naïve to suggest that personal reward alone is sufficient to ensure collaboration
in the philanthropic community. While individuals who choose to work in foundations are often motivated
to do so by their desire to serve the public good, they are still people — not saints. And, as people, they
can and may also be encouraged (or discouraged) by financial and professional rewards, or the lack
thereof. In fact, evidence of that was clear in our example of the Cogen Group Foundation as well as the
Kastorff Elsinore Foundation, where the burdens and complications of collaborative work were seen to
outweigh any benefits or compensations.
10
Warren Bennis, 1997, Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (Cambridge, MA: Perseus
Publishing), p. 200.
11
Bennis, 1997, p. 204.

While all of the foundations in our sample identified "reward" as one of the most critical conditions of
intraorganizational collaboration to establish, they also articulated it as one of the hardest conditions to
accomplish. While old reward systems are based on measures of individual success and achievement,
new reward systems must be framed around group strategies and accomplishments. This is neither easy
nor simple. To be successful, these new reward systems must be able to motivate real, not rhetorical,
collaboration and create meaningful incentives for substantive, not superfluous, integration. This will
require new time scales, as well as other new metrics, by which to measure both the process and the
product of organizational employment.
4.1.4.b Take-away 8: Intraorganizational collaboration must be motivated by the knowledge

from past experience and the imperative of current commitment, but needs to be
maintained by the promise of future reward.
4.1.5. Organizational Infrastructure

A final condition for intraorganizational collaboration is the establishment of the right organizational
infrastructure, be it physical, financial, and/or technological. This does not mean that to succeed with the
form and effect of intraorganizational collaboration, a foundation must acquire the most elaborate
building, the largest endowment, or the most advanced technologies. Rather, what it means is that a
foundation must be, as one foundation executive told us, “nimble, opportunistic, and flexible” with the
infrastructure it has, to shape and re-shape its works and its networks to best address the various and
varied problems it treats rather than being shaped by them.
Not one of the foundations in our sample has fully established a dedicated infrastructure for
intraorganizational collaboration. The closest example may be found at least in the conversations, if not in
the actions of the Athdar Foundation and the Zocalo Trust. Both have incorporated the active, interactive,
and proactive use of a simple organizational Intranet that, according to one of the Athdar executive staff
members, “allows flexible or fluid, but also encourages instructive and informed grantmaking.” Likewise,
both organizations have adopted the concept of more fluid "funding pools" over rigid financial structures.
But, perhaps, the most innovative forms proposed here is the Athdar’s “study group” infrastructure. When
implemented, it will allow the organization to create and re-create its networks of people, skills, and
perspectives in a manner that allows grantmaking to respond to the problem and the project at hand,
rather than simply house the resources in place.
As one foundation director stated, “it is the advantage of the Hollywood model of the 21st century
th
versus the industrial model of the 20 ,” where resources are designed and dedicated on the basis of the
project and its finite needs not based on an organization and its infinite structure.
4.1.5.a Take-away 9: The infrastructure of an organization should reflect its commitment to,
and practice of, new models of intraorganizational collaboration rather than be
restrained by the confines of old forms of organizational division.

5. Conclusion
We believe that integrated, collaborative networks can be powerful levers, both for creating more
efficient philanthropic organizations and for inspiring more effective giving. But given the data uncovered
here, creating such networks is, obviously, easier to conceive than to achieve. What is fascinating is how
obvious some of the conclusions are — that committed leadership is key, that rewards are essential, that
an organization's infrastructure both drives and reflects the desired outcome. Yet, in philanthropy, as in
the world at large, such efforts are struggling to be born; while the conclusions are obvious about what
conditions are necessary, the paths toward implementing these conditions are not. This necessitates the
need for focused strategic planning and organizational learning around these conditions.
Again, as Barabási tells us in Linked:
… We have taken apart the universe and have no idea of how to put it back together. After
spending trillions of research dollars to disassemble nature in the last century, we are just now
acknowledging that we have no clue how to continue – except to take it apart further. … [However],
today, we increasingly recognize that nothing happens in isolation. Most events and phenomena
are connected, caused by, and interacting with a huge number of other pieces of a complex
universal puzzle. We have come to see that we live in a small world, where everything is linked to
everything else. … We have come to grasp the importance of networks. … They open up a novel
perspective on the interconnected world around us, indicating that networks will dominate the new
century to a much greater degree than most people are yet ready to acknowledge. They will drive
12
the fundamental questions that form our view of the world in the coming era.
With this acceptance and acknowledgement of the world’s complexity as the first step toward the
discovery and design of holistic solutions, the philanthropic community, like the rest of the world, has an
unprecedented opportunity to proactively change both its processes and products to achieve maximum
impact. Humans do not often happily embrace change, nor do organizations transform themselves
overnight. But we believe that the results of this empirical study, as preliminary as they may be, are a
strong and positive indicator of the possibilities and potential for such a change. We are convinced that
further study and more iterative practice will provide the proof.
6. Acknowledgments
The author and the Hybrid Vigor Institute would like to thank and acknowledge Vincent Stehle and the
Surdna Foundation for their vision and their support of this pioneering work; our advisors for their insights;
and our interview subjects for their trust and candor. Our thanks to all involved for their ongoing desire to
effect positive change in the world.
12
Barabási, 2002, pp. 6-7.


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ORGANIZING CHANGE FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Emerging Models of Intraorganizational Collaboration in Philanthropy

Prepared for The Surdna Foundation

Diana Rhoten, Ph.D.

© 2002 The Hybrid Vigor Institute

2. The Emergence of Intraorganizational Collaboration..........................................................................5

3. The Forms of Intraorganizational Collaboration..............................................................................7

4. The Conditions of Intraorganizational Collaboration.....................................................................22

Organizing Change from the Inside Out http://hybridvigor.org 2

Chief Executive Officer and President, major U.S. foundation

Organizing Change from the Inside Out http://hybridvigor.org 3

1.1 Approach and structure of the study

Organizing Change from the Inside Out http://hybridvigor.org 4

2.1 The need for intraorganizational collaboration

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2.2 The reasons behind intraorganizational collaboration

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3.1 Criteria and characteristics of intraorganizational collaboration

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3.2 Typological models of intraorganizational collaboration

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3.2.1 The Personal Interest Model

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3.2.2 The Underlying Issue Model

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3.2.3 The Secondary Engagement Model

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3.2.4 The Team Player Model

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3.2.5 The Catalytic Converter Model

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3.2.6 The Integrated Systems Model

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4.1 Intervening variables/ interfering factors

4.1.1. Organizational Size

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4.1.1.a Take-away 1: Intraorganizational collaboration depends on individuals perceiving

4.1.2. Organizational Diversity

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4.1.2.a Take-away 3: Intraorganizational collaboration should select and collect diverse

4.1.3. Organizational Authority

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4.1.3.a Take-away 5: Intraorganizational collaboration should be carefully led and mutually

4.1.4. Organizational Employment

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4.1.4.b Take-away 8: Intraorganizational collaboration must be motivated by the knowledge

4.1.5. Organizational Infrastructure

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