Governing Government-Nonprofit Partnerships: Linking Governance Mechanisms to Collaboration Stages

Abstract

How are government-nonprofit partnerships governed when nonprofits play significant roles in financing and creating public services? This article examines the linkage between governance mechanisms and various collaboration stages of government-nonprofit partnerships. Using a multiple case design of 10 government-nonprofit partnerships for public parks in major cities of the Ohio River Basin Region, four major mechanisms are identified: representing government on the nonprofit board, reaching a formal agreement, building relationships, and building leadership capacity. Several related propositions are presented to facilitate future theory testing.

Keywords:

• governance
• management of services
• nonprofit organizations
• partnership
• public-private interaction

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Beth Gazley, Burnell Fischer, Michael McGuire, Chao Guo, Daniel Cole, Judith Millesen, Curtis Child, Lewis Faulk, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article.

Notes

Notes

1. In this study, the term partnership is used interchangeably with collaboration, because both terms are prevalent in the public management literature to describe similar phenomena (Cornforth, Hayes, & Vangen, 2015; Stone et al., 2010).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yuan (Daniel) Cheng

Yuan (Daniel) Cheng, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, MN.