Article explores collaboration and community benefit in senior lawyer networks

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Summary

• Cooperation on a joint project thrives with strong leadership at the helm of the project.
• A collaborative project that began to share overhead quickly evolved into one focused on the participants’ community missions.
• Changes at a nonprofit may be the short-term cost of collaborating with other agencies to benefit the community.

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Who among the Voice of Experience readership can forget the star-studded music fundraisers of the 1980s?

First came Bob Geldof’s Band Aid in late 1984.

Next was Quincy Jones, along with more famously Michael Jackson, and Lionel Richie’s “ We Are the World ” in March of 1985.

Then, Geldof organized Live Aid in July of 1985 in my hometown of Philadelphia and its simultaneous counterpart in London.

Just a few weeks later, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp took to the stage for Farm Aid in September of 1985, the only concert that continues today.

I confess: I did not join the approximately 90,000 who attended Philadelphia’s Live Aid concert.

But I did watch much of the London and Philadelphia concerts on television while studying for two bar exams.

I still enjoy reliving all three online and those still-memorable performances—especially the Queen Live Aid performance.

Although they all took place before the era of the ubiquitous cell phone, the performances are readily available to watch on YouTube at the above links.

But over 40 years later, I am not writing to revisit the music of my youth.

Instead, those fundraisers remind me of an important contemporary lesson: the power of collaboration, people working together toward a common goal.

I witnessed the importance of collaboration firsthand when I was involved in the formation of North Penn Commons.

That occurred over four years, from initial planning in 2012 to the grand opening celebration in 2016.

Our opening day began with the ceremonial 2016 Human Chain of Caring to move Manna’s food inventory from volunteer to volunteeer, one item and one person at a time.

(I was part of the chain during that  joyful day.)

I had been a board and committee member of Manna on Main Street for several years when a local foundation first proposed the North Penn project.

(To be clear, my perspective in this article is solely that of a community member, rather than in any formal capacity with Manna on Main Street.)

As a longtime resident in a small suburban community, I had long understood the value of networking.

Service on several nonprofit boards has also taught me the primacy of mission in such organizations.

I vividly remember another nonprofit board training many years earlier that encouraged us to pursue BHAGs— big, hairy, audacious goals.

But I have never seen that concept so well executed as in the formation of North Penn Commons.

Why did it work so well?

The promoter of the project, a local foundation formed to manage the proceeds of the sale of our local nonprofit hospital to a for-profit entity, kept the development process moving.

I can’t understate the role of the now-retired individual who first led the foundation.

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That task involved not only setting timetables but also jawboning action to meet deadlines.

He continuously engaged four sets of nonprofit board members, staff members, and local politicians to educate them on the benefits of the project.

I also recall how his shuttle diplomacy overcame the objections and concerns of the participating organizations’ existing board members

The foundation also funded the planning process, beginning with the development of a feasibility study and strategic plans.

He tirelessly lobbied the boards of the four nonprofit participants to support the project.

Over ten years later, I still remember his presentations to the separate and joint boards of the four founding nonprofits.

A social worker and career nonprofit executive, he had the vision to move the foundation beyond its traditional role of grantmaking for specific projects.

He instead engaged it in funding the years-long development of a project for our community’s benefit.

His retirement announcement highlighted his focus on community benefit that I believe underlays North Penn Commons’ success:

He built a team of talented people to serve as relationship builders, advocates for social justice, and conveners to raise the voices of people with lived experiences and those who provide services. His work has helped to inform local policy and practice and to build organizational and safety net system capacity. Recognizing the enormity and scale of challenges to build and sustain an inclusive safety net system, he led numerous efforts to partner with others and to encourage colleagues to explore the value of partnerships and collaborative work.

Much like the organizers of the 1980s music fundraisers, he persuaded four independent boards of community leaders to unite around the project.

At times, the joint project required an organization to accept the loss of some individual control or time-honored but overlapping activities.

However, none of the organizations or boards ever lost their individual control, especially the site host.

That was crucial for the nonprofits’ donors, particularly those who had funded existing facilities and their mission.

Instead, he helped each group’s leadership and supporters overcome their own concerns, in the interest of a common goal, for the greater benefit of our community.

Winning the groups’ leaders’ hearts and minds remains, to me, the greatest accomplishment of the North Penn Commons project.

Moreover, that individual leadership extended to the founding groups’ executives.

At joint planning meetings and individual board meetings of my nonprofit, I regularly heard how well the leaders had learned to work together to advance the project, despite the obstacles each had encountered or objections from their own board members and staff.

I think that legacy of simultaneously combining collaboration with individual growth for each organization lives on today, approaching the 10 th anniversary of its founding.

In hindsight, North Penn Commons began (from my perspective) as a cost-saving plan, based on sharing of the four organizations’ overhead.

However, it quickly became a mission-driven proposition for all four groups— the original focus of the organizer.

Although the founding nonprofits’ leaders did not have the star power of the musicians who led the relief efforts of the 1980s, the organization they built is still going strong.

And they remain much bigger stars in my personal universe than anyone I saw on a musical stage in 1984–85.

Building on the success of the collaboration, Manna on Main Street has, in the decade since then, leaned further into its mission to meet the needs of the food insecure population it serves.

Rather than just providing meals, Manna’s Common Grounds Job Training Program attacks the underlying causes of food insecurity, unemployment, and underemployment.

From today’s perspective, I hope the North Penn Commons experience can be a model for other nonprofits on creative ways to promote mission.

I hope that spirit can overcome budget challenges and skepticism about investing in socially beneficial projects disparaged by the DEI label.

Another key benefit of the project was the elimination of any stigma of food insecurity for those who must rely on a food pantry to feed a family.

No one knows if you are entering the project’s common lobby to work out at the Y, to go to your apartment, to buy lunch—or to eat a free meal at the food pantry.

In fact, if you are ever in the North Penn region of Philadelphia’s suburbs, I encourage you to enjoy a meal at Manna on Main Street’s Common Grounds Cafe — and support Manna’s mission at the same time.

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Endnotes

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Author

Stanley Peter Jaskiewicz

Stanley P. Jaskiewicz - Spector Gadon Rosen Vinci P.C. (sgrvlaw.com) Stanley P. Jaskiewicz Member Before retiring from the practice of law, Stanley P. Jaskiewicz was a Member in the Corporate Law Group of Spector Gadon Rosen...

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Author

Stanley Peter Jaskiewicz

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