Networking and collaboration are often heralded as essential strategies for strengthening social impact. However, for small nonprofits and grassroots organizations, participation in these partnerships can impose significant burdens—diverting time and resources away from their mission-critical work. Larger institutions, while well-resourced to engage in networking efforts, often fail to account for the hidden costs incurred by their smaller partners, leading to unbalanced collaborations that reinforce existing power imbalances.
This article examines the unintended consequences of networking and partnership-building, explores research and real-world examples of how these burdens manifest, and presents a data-driven approach to fostering equity in community partnerships using Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Community Partner Relationship Management (CPRM).
Table of Contents
The Unseen Burden of Collaboration
Small nonprofits and community-based organizations (CBOs) are often expected to engage in networks with government agencies, foundations, and larger nonprofits. While collaboration can bring resources, knowledge, and opportunities, the cost of participation is often disproportionately borne by smaller organizations.
Here are four primary ways collaboration often unintentionally exacerbates equity gaps.
1. Time and Labor Costs
Small nonprofits typically operate with limited staff, yet they are frequently asked to attend meetings, share insights, and contribute to collaborative initiatives. Unlike larger institutions with dedicated networking or policy staff, these small teams must divert time from direct service delivery to maintain relationships.
📌 Example:
A local food pantry in a rural town is invited to join a regional hunger task force organized by a state health agency. Attending monthly meetings, sharing data, and coordinating efforts require hours of unpaid labor, while the agency benefits from grassroots insights without offering compensation.
The agency creates a compensation fund to support its official task force partners and pay them for a share of the time contributed, using a formula that considers the organization’s budget, staff size, and capacity.
2. Fear of Saying No
Smaller organizations may feel obligated to participate in collaborative efforts—even when it stretches their resources thin—for fear of losing funding, influence, or key relationships. When larger institutions extend an invitation, declining may signal disengagement or disinterest, even when the ask is unsustainable.
📌 Example:
A youth services nonprofit receives funding from a major foundation that requires participation in multiple learning cohorts and collaborative groups. Despite being understaffed with a team of only 7, they feel compelled to join because rejecting these opportunities might jeopardize their funding renewal.
The foundation changes its policy to separate all funding decisions from participation in learning cohorts and collaborative groups. They assign staff in a different office to manage grants than those running the learning and collaboration programs to ensure groups know the decision to participate won’t affect funding.
3. Power Imbalances and Tokenism
In many partnerships, smaller organizations provide critical community insights and credibility, yet they rarely have decision-making power or receive adequate support. Larger institutions often rely on these groups for legitimacy but fail to equitably distribute leadership or resources or seriously consider their feedback and perspective.
Creating partnerships that address equity issues instead of exacerbating them requires a real commitment to empower your partners. That often means introducing new accountability mechanisms like power-sharing agreements or voting rules to ensure they can influence your shared decision-making and direction.
📌 Example:
A public health coalition focused on addressing racial health disparities includes several grassroots organizations. However, the larger hospital systems and government agencies control the agenda and funding, while CBOs contribute unpaid expertise without meaningful influence.
They address this gap by creating a Coalition Advisory Board with significant CBO representation that makes decisions influencing the coalition’s policies and priorities.
4. Lack of ROI for Small Organizations
While networking benefits funders and institutions—helping them align efforts, secure grants, and meet strategic objectives—small organizations often see limited direct returns. If partnerships do not lead to funding, shared resources, or operational efficiencies, they become a drain rather than an asset.
📌 Example:
A foundation requires its grantees to collaborate on a new initiative but does not provide additional funding for partnership-building efforts. Small nonprofits bear the costs of engagement and don’t generate any significant benefits themselves, while the foundation strengthens its portfolio.
The foundation leverages social network analysis (SNA) to map its grantee network, identifying each grantee’s resource needs and available assets. By visualizing these connections, they can foster stronger collaborations, enhance resource-sharing, and maximize the return on investment (ROI) of their collective efforts.
Collectively, these four issues lead small community-based organizations to prioritize collaboration to maintain influence and funding because they feel they have no choice. This saps their strength and distracts them from their mission-critical programs, often without providing substantive resources, funding, or impact in return.
Evidence & Research on the Equity Implications of Network Burdens
While this specific concern is not well researched in the community partnership literature, multiple studies and articles on collaboration and networking more broadly make note of the invisible costs and burdens involved.
A 2022 report, “Building Capacity for Evidence-Informed Improvement: Supporting State and Local Education Agencies” acknowledged the invisible cost of partnership and recommends carefully considering the benefits and costs of potential new partnerships:
“Before bringing in external research partners, agency staff should consult with their internal research colleagues to weigh the tradeoffs between the independence and extra capacity of an outside partner, and the longer timelines, reduced flexibility, increased inefficiencies, and opportunity costs associated with external partnerships.”
Another article from 2021 by the London Business School discusses the hidden cost to collaboration in both non-profit and for-profit organizations. In “Is there a hidden cost to collaboration?” the author Keyvan Vakili writes:
“It’s hard to assess this risk because no one can see the counterfactual,” says Dr Vakili. “By collaborating, maybe you got the best result possible or a result that was OK, but if you have very little way of knowing the true value of each person’s contribution, you have no way of knowing whether the cost of collaboration was actually worth it – or whether you might have been better off doing something completely different.”
Without intentional strategies to balance these burdens, community partnerships risk reinforcing, rather than reducing, equity gaps.
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A Better Way: Strategic Network Management
Recognizing the issue of network equity is only the first step to addressing it in practice.
How can institutions ensure their partnerships are equitable and mutually beneficial? We believe the key lies in social network analysis, community partner relationship management, and shifting to embrace a shared value approach to partnership.
Here’s a brief introduction to these three game-changing tools and strategies:
1. Leveraging Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Ecosystem Mapping
SNA allows organizations to map and analyze their partnerships, revealing who holds power, who is overburdened, and who may need more support. Instead of assuming that all partners contribute equally, institutions can use SNA to measure trust, value, and resource flows between network members.
By drawling lines across sectors and focus areas in an ecosystem map of your community, you can better identify which organizations are over-networked and shift roles and expectations to reduce the burden.
However, SNA is difficult to use on your own without prior training or experience. Most software options and approaches were designed for research rather than practice, limiting their usefulness for cross-sector community collaboration. That’s where a CPRM system can make all the difference.
2. Implementing Community Partner Relationship Management (CPRM)
Traditional Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are built for sales and fundraising—but community collaborations require a different approach. PARTNER CPRM, a tool developed by Visible Network Labs, enables organizations to strategically manage their networks and address inequitable networking impacts by:
✔ Mapping relationships and collaboration patterns
✔ Tracking engagement, contributions, and partner capacity
✔ Measuring trust and value exchange to ensure balance
✔ Identifying which partners may be overburdened and need support
By applying a systems-thinking perspective to traditional relationship management approaches, you can shine a light on the issue of inequitable networking burdens to start taking action. However, this ultimately requires a final piece in the puzzle: taking action and shifting to a true shared value model.
3. Shifting to a Shared Value Approach to Networking
Institutions should move beyond transactional relationships and adopt a shared value model, where partnerships provide mutual benefits rather than extractive obligations.
Here are a few best practices and ideas:
✅ Reduce mandatory meeting frequency and streamline reporting requirements.
✅ Give each partner a clear role and only require engagement when that specific role is needed.
✅ Provide funding specifically for collaboration and capacity building, not just program implementation.
✅ Rotate leadership roles to ensure diverse voices have influence.
✅ Create easy opportunities for peer-to-peer sharing of info, resources, and opportunities.
✅ Offer financial compensation or administrative support to small nonprofits for their participation.
Ultimately, what works for your partners will depend on their needs. Take time during calls and conversations to ask them what they need, where they are hitting barriers, and how you can help them, share resources, or amplify their message.
A little reciprocity goes a long way to create shared value while strengthening trust at the same time.
Conclusion: A More Equitable Future for Community Partnerships
Networking and collaboration remain essential tools for social impact—but they must be intentional, strategic, and equitable. Without thoughtful design, partnerships risk placing undue burdens on smaller organizations while disproportionately benefiting larger institutions.
By leveraging Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Community Partner Relationship Management (CPRM) tools like PARTNER CPRM, organizations can ensure their networks create shared value rather than undue strain.
Are you ready to take a strategic approach to managing your community partnerships? Request a demo of PARTNER CPRM today to see how data-driven insights can build stronger, more equitable networks. Click here to request a demo and get started.
