Not all on the same boat

On this sunny afternoon in the city, I’m at the cafe that was the destination for today’s walk (a collaboration between TechWalk and Toronto Café Walk).

Today’s edition is about collaboration. It was almost about what came up in the few days I just spent in Muskoka, which I’ll save for later. I did manage to film this video there, on a different topic if you’re interested.

Open to your thoughts and feedback, as always. Let’s dive in.

Collaboration appears in almost every strategy.
Building the conditions for it isn’t as easy.

I’ve seen the word collaboration show up everywhere. It’s in strategic plans, funding applications, company values and event themes. We use it to describe everything from a joint Instagram post to building a multi-year partnership.

Almost everyone seems to agree that collaboration is good, but we’re not always creating the conditions for it to actually work.

I’ve thought about this across two very different parts of my work: the social impact sector through The Good Growth Company, and the business-to-business world through Clarity Content. The challenges in each space are different, but this is true for all:

We can’t collaborate well if our systems continue to reward competition and control above everything else.

Collaboration and social impact

You’d assume that collaboration is already a massive part of the social impact sector. Nonprofits, funders, governments, businesses, consultants and community groups regularly work alongside one another. In many cases, they have to. The challenges they are addressing are too large, interconnected and persistent for any one organization to solve alone.

At the same time, it’s not always as straightforward to put into practice, even when it seems obvious.

Organizations may share a cause while competing for the same funding. Leaders may want to build partnerships while their teams are already stretched. People may enter a collaboration with different levels of influence, capacity, visibility and risk. Even when everyone arrives with good intentions, the structure around them can make meaningful collaboration difficult.

This is one reason we chose collaboration as the theme for the first Together for Impact Summit that I’m hosting this fall in Toronto. (By the way, prices go up in a week, so if you wanted to join us, tickets are here).

We’re bringing together nonprofit professionals, social-purpose businesses, community leaders, funders and public-sector voices for a full day. It will include conversations about changemaker wellbeing, community engagement, financial sustainability and the relationship between business and social impact, followed by curated one-on-one consultations with experts.

More than 20 speakers and consultants have agreed to be part of it.
But the goal is not simply to put a lot of smart people on stages.

I’ve assembled a panel called The Collaboration Imperative, bringing together nonprofit leaders, funders and public-sector perspectives, to explore the role that organizations, government and businesses can play in addressing challenges together. To host the conversation, I invited in the awesome Tasha Van Vlack, who co-founded The Nonprofit Hive (a global network of over 3,000 nonprofit professionals). She’s also the founder and Chief Community Strategist at Community Hives, where she helps organizations build stronger connections through intentional relationship design.

When I asked Tasha what our theme meant to her, she said the word collaboration is legit following her everywhere, and described a tension:

Tasha said that for the upcoming Summit, she’s looking forward to exploring where collaboration is working, where it continues to break down, and what it would take to make it more than a word we all keep putting in our strategic plans. (Love that).

The issues facing our communities rarely fit inside the mandate of one organization. Food insecurity connects to housing, employment, health, transportation and public policy. Youth opportunity connects to education, mentorship, technology, mental health and access to networks. Climate action, equity and community wellbeing similarly cross every boundary we have created between sectors.

Organizations still need focus. They need clear mandates, accountability and expertise. Collaboration does not require everyone to become everything. It asks us to recognize where our work intersects and where combining distinct capabilities could produce a better outcome.

It also asks us to be honest about what makes partnership difficult:

Who is doing the work?
Who is making the decisions?
Who receives the funding, recognition or data?
Does everyone have the capacity to participate?
Are we sharing power, or simply distributing tasks?

If we can’t answer those questions clearly, collaboration can quickly become another demand placed on already overextended people.

The business version of the same lesson

This theme has also been showing up in my business.

I was recently asked in a video interview about something I wish I had learned sooner in business. My answer was that you do not need to own everything to build something valuable.

When you’re growing a company in a competitive space, it seems obvious to focus on growing quickly toward building the biggest boat.

You add more services, tools and capabilities. You bring as much talent as possible onto your team. If a client needs something you don’t offer, the immediate instinct is often to find a way to produce it internally.

For a while during my agency days, that was part of my approach. I have always believed in collaboration, but I did not fully appreciate this type of partnership as an alternative to “ownership”.

The best person for the work does not always need to become an employee, contractor or acquisition. Sometimes, the better opportunity is for each of us to remain focused on our own area of expertise while finding meaningful ways to build together.

We can share the same harbour without needing everyone on the same boat, to continue with that analogy.

I’m seeing this come to life clearly through Clarity Content and other projects I am involved in now. Our work requires a wide mix of skills: strategy, interviewing, writing, video production, design, distribution, technology and subject-matter expertise. We can build a strong internal foundation while also working with people and companies that are exceptional at the parts they already own.

This approach creates a different question. Instead of always asking, “How do we recreate this capability ourselves?”, I recommend asking: “Who already does this exceptionally well, and how could we grow together?”

An effective business partnership can allow each side to remain excellent and independent, while creating something more valuable together.

It can give clients access to deeper expertise without requiring either business to become bloated. It can also open new markets, expand capacity and create opportunities that neither side would have reached alone.

Of course, partnership is not automatically easier than ownership.

It requires clarity around roles, expectations, communication, decision-making and value. It requires trust, which takes longer to build than a shared announcement graphic. It also means accepting that you will not control every part of the process.

But control and quality are not the same thing. Sometimes, our desire to control everything becomes the very thing limiting what we can build.

What meaningful collaboration requires

Across both social impact and business, I think stronger collaboration begins with a few questions:

• What are we genuinely trying to accomplish together?
  The shared outcome should be more specific than wanting to “partner” or find synergy.

• What does each participant uniquely contribute?
  A partnership becomes stronger when people bring distinct value rather than duplicating one another. (And if they actually do it).

• Who has the capacity to do the work?
  Good intentions do not create time, staffing or resources. These need to be discussed honestly.

• How will value, recognition and decision-making be shared?
  The answer does not have to be equal in every respect, but it should be fair, visible and agreed upon.

• Can everyone remain strong outside the partnership?
  Healthy collaboration should not require one participant to surrender their identity, expertise or independence for the arrangement to work.

These questions apply whether we are building a cross-sector initiative, producing something for a client, hosting a community event or supporting a shared cause.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve inevitably heard me talk about collaboration:

Collaboration is a design challenge. We need to design the roles, incentives, relationships and conditions that allow people to contribute well. That’s what we can explore at the Summit, and what I am continuing to practise in my own companies.

If our biggest challenges extend beyond any one organization, I think some of our best opportunities do too.

And if you missed it earlier, the Together for Impact Summit takes place on November 5, 2026 at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. Tickets are available at the Earlybird rate until the end of the month here.

Based on your experience, or what you’ve observed, let me know:

What is one thing that makes collaboration genuinely work?
What’s one thing that causes it to fall apart?

See you next week.