Challenge

By late 2009, two social sector organizations were exploring how best to grow and scale their impact. More Than Wheels had started opening new offices throughout New England, but quickly realized that establishing the infrastructure for each new office was costly. In addition, the organization was struggling with managing multiple offices and growing its client base. Similarly, Ways to Work faced challenges as it explored options for expansion of financial services. The organization wanted its services to benefit a broader pool of clients and had decided that starting a new service was the best way to achieve this goal.

At the suggestion of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the two organizations began discussions to determine whether a merger might help both organizations overcome their individual challenges and achieve their aspirations to increase their impact – and if so, what the merger would look like.

Overview

Root Cause worked for these two organizations to facilitate a merger exploration process with support from the SeaChange-Lodestar Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Our team met with each organization about their individual needs and priorities. We represented both organizations’ interests throughout discussions to determine ways they might be able to work together to meet their individual challenges while expanding their impact. Our consultants also guided the organizations through the completion of legal and financial due diligence and synthesized and packaged information about the two organizations in a way that was both respectful of each organization and sparked discussion about potential collaboration. Through this process, our goal was to help Ways to Work and More Than Wheels determine their future course of action – a merger, partnership, or collaboration through information-sharing.

As a result of this merger exploration process, More Than Wheels and Ways to Work decided that the best way to move forward was to collaborate to understand how they could each improve their own practices based on the strengths and lessons learned by the other organization. Although they did not decide to merge, both organizations found that the process of engaging in an in-depth, facilitated process in which they exchanged information and discussed strengths, challenges, and ways to improve was extremely beneficial and helped propel both organizations to a higher level of impact.

As discussed in Collaborative Learning Case Study on More than Wheels and Ways to Work, this process of collaborative learning can be a cost-efficient way for two organizations tackling similar social problems to benefit from each other’s strengths and scale their impact more quickly without having to address the organizational and cultural challenges of a merger.