Should More Nonprofits Merge?

Published by the Center for Social Innovation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) is a key periodical that covers topics such as nonprofit management, social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, and philanthropy.

In the Summer 2007 issue of SSIR, there are three interesting articles on nonprofit mergers:

Go Ahead--Pop the Question: Why More Nonprofits Should Merge"
Kevin T. Kilpatrick, executive vice president of the consulting company Metropolitan Group, explains that there are too many nonprofits competing for scarce resources, a situation that can lead to mission drift as organizations chase funding opportunities.

Before You Say "I do": Why Nonprofits Should Be Wary of Merging
Denise L. Gammal, managing director of the Stanford Project on the Evolution of Nonprofits, explains that nonprofits need to be careful when considering mergers because they often underestimate the time, cost, and effort involved in consolidations.

Uniting for Survival
The case study examines the ways that four Chicago-area cancer support centers collaborated before forming a fifth nonprofit to leverage their resources.

Also in the Summer 2007 issue, Aneel Karnani, associate professor of strategy at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, presents an alternate perspective on microfiance. In Microfinance Misses Its Mark, Karnani suggests that in order to address long-term poverty issues, societies should invest in supporting labor-intensive industries rather than microfinance programs. The full-text of this article is available at the SSIR web site.

Stanford Social Innovation Review is just one of more than 60 periodicals that the Foundation Center library/learning centers subscribes to. Click here to find out about other periodicals in our collection.