Chapter 10: Conclusion

Social problems often represent a manifestation of complex social and behavioral forces that make it challenging to determine causal influence and propose meaningful policy and intervention. It has been suggested that nonprofit organizations are uniquely positioned to address this complexity due to the inherent democratic control, association, and mission legitimacy present in the social welfare logic (Pache & Santos, 2013). However, there is also a growing recognition that tackling intractable social problems cannot be accomplished by a single organization acting alone, it requires collaboration to deal effectively with these challenges. By working proactively together, organizations from the nonprofit, government, and commercial sectors can increase the scale and enhance the sustainability of social innovation efforts (Al-Tabba, Leach, & March, 2014). Previous scholarship has suggested that funders as well as nonprofit organizations should take a leadership position in creating and growing cross-sector collaboration (Austin, 2000; Dees, 1998; Grant & Crutchfield, 2008).