Is 2026 the Year You Rethink Partnership? Start Here.
By Robin Neidorf
Many mission-driven organizations today are facing unprecedented challenges, whether from volatile funding, regulatory threats, or the need to scale impact quickly. In the face of these headwinds, many leaders assume their only choice is a risky, full-scale merger. But what if there was a full spectrum of partnership and business model options?
This is exactly what we discovered when we began work with the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) to support organizations that receive and redistribute federal grants for family planning health services. As you might imagine, this is a sector facing enormous and pointed challenges, and the five organizations we are working directly with are battling state politics as well as threats to the federal funding stream. It’s not pretty.
NFPRHA assembled a working group for member nonprofits open to the possibility of merger, consolidation, or the creation of multi-state grantee organizations. How might these organizations strengthen their defense against threats from all sides through innovative business modeling?
Through our collective learning and the use of Tangelo Tree’s tools for partnership readiness, vision clarity, and opportunity assessment, what’s emerging is a powerful new range of possibilities for:
Peer-to-peer learning on how some organizations have already successfully expanded their reach across state lines
Shared services around data collection, technical assistance, and training
Increasing organizational flexibility and resilience through revenue diversification
Spin-offs, program transfers, and new corporate structures to shore up service delivery in the face of threats
All of these represent different stages of the partnership continuum - the full range of possibilities from informal discussions to full mergers and integrations.
Figure: The Partnership Continuum
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We often remind clients that when it comes to partnerships, “form follows function.” Establish the vision and goals for partnership, and then select the form(s) that will enable you to realize them. As our founder and managing partner Michael Anderson often says, “We are always able to find a partnership structure that works for the goals.”
Don’t wait until your needs are urgent and existential – now is the time to learn about and explore how partnership, at any point in the continuum, can be a powerful strategy for effectiveness and resilience.
Contact us today about your vision and goals for 2026 - it may be that some form of partnership will be your springboard to success.
