New Public Governance, Social Services, and the Potential of Co-Located Nonprofit Centers for Improved Collaborations

Abstract

AbstractNew Public Governance’s approach to public management seeks to both decrease costs and to increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of publicly-funded services. It further emphasizes effective, efficient collaborations among service providers, and well-functioning networks of service-providers connected with government funders. One conceivable vehicle to promote collaborations among nonprofits providing contracted services is to establish co-located nonprofit centers. In such a multi-tenant building, its owner or master lease-holder, which is usually a nonprofit, would recruit other nonprofits to rent space and use shared resources and/or services in its shared-space workplace. Typically, these workplaces are more affordable, stable, efficient, and of higher quality than their current offices. Also, nonprofit centers often enthusiastically promote cooperation and collaboration among their tenants. Several hundred such centers already exist in the United States and Canada. Two profiles of two nonprofit centers where co-located organizations collaboratively provide social services, as well as some survey results, are presented to illustrate that nonprofit center sites are indeed operational and could be a vehicle to help support collaborative goals of New Public Governance.