Partners, Not Providers: A Collaboration Typology for Congregations and Community

Abstract

Scholars have long been interested in nonprofits, religious congregations, and their collaborative activity. This research builds upon past large-scale studies of congregations to suggest a nuanced understanding of how clergy approach congregational partnerships and make decisions about collaborating with community organizations. Using qualitative data from a geographically bounded sample of 30 Protestant congregations and grounded theory methodology, we suggest that clergy view their congregations as serving a different purpose from nonprofit partners and navigate numerous tensions inherent in congregational life in their pursuit of collaborative activity. We introduce a new typology of congregational collaboration that posits collaboration as a strategy for providing material and spiritual resources, in and outside of their congregations.

Multiple Identities in Faith-based Organizations: Exploring Status and Value Homophily in Idealized Partnerships

“…For instance, nonprofits working in the same or adjacent resource-deprived communities with relatively homogeneous religious beliefs, all have low revenue, and rely on one another to help their target audience. Resource dependency may also play a role if FBOs are largely bounded by a geographic environment (Cooper & Cooper, 2021). Similarly, a bona fide network perspective of IOC (Cooper & Shumate, 2012) suggests that IOCs are embedded in a complex environment that enables some configurations and constrains others.…”

“…Indeed, scholars have pointed to the challenges in IOC when partners have divergent values and competing logics, leading to conflict, coordination fatigue, power imbalance, and lack of trust (Barbour & James, 2015; Cooper & Shumate, 2012; Koschmann, 2013b; Lewis et al, 2010; Woo, 2019). Tensions may be particularly apparent in collaboration involving religious entities as they seek to balance their religious mandates with the goals of serving a broader community (Cooper & Cooper, 2021).…”