Detroit

With a mix of urgency, excitement — and at times, frustration — speakers here at the opening session of Independent Sector’s annual meeting called on nonprofit leaders to find new ways to work together in response to the nation’s problems.

This is an “all-hands-on-deck, walk-and-chew-gum kind of moment,” Melody Barnes, President Obama’s domestic policy adviser, told the audience.

She said the administration is committed to finding innovative ways for the federal government to support and promote nonprofit groups.

For example, through the Office of Social Innovation, officials hope to identify successful programs and help them expand to serve more people, she said. “We believe somewhere out there is the next Teach for America or Harlem Children’s Zone, and we want to find it,” Ms. Barnes said.

The work of nonprofit groups, she added, figures heavily in the discussions at the White House; it’s “part of the bloodstream” of the administration.

‘Six-Turkey’ Scenario

Other speakers at the two-and-a-half hour opening session talked about the need for organizations within the nonprofit realm to work together far more than ever before, uniting around precise goals and then clearly dividing up tasks.

Gail McGovern, head of the American Red Cross, told a story of families at a military base that almost received six turkeys apiece for Thanksgiving because of a lack of coordination between charities. “In these economic times, we have to be very careful that we don’t waste a dime,” she said.

Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a religious and human-rights network, put the issue even more bluntly, likening nonprofit organizations to competing gangs protecting their turfs. “We’ve got to drop our gang colors,” he urged.

Nonprofit groups need to move beyond thinking about their own organizational success, which holds little meaning if bigger societal needs are still going unmet, Brian Gallagher, head of United Way Worldwide, told participants.

While many nonprofit leaders talk about collaboration today, he said, few embrace it at the level required. “True integration is when you let someone else spend your money,” he said.

Mr. Gallagher pointed to United Way’s work with foundations and charities to cut the high-school dropout rate in half by 2018 as an example of the kind of goal nonprofit leaders should commit to and then be willing to be judged on the results.

‘Collaboration Silos’

Several speakers talked about the need to form new alliances, often with unlikely partners. Mr. Gallagher warned against getting stuck in “collaboration silos,” in which similar groups never venture beyond talking to organizations that share their particular causes.

Janet Murguia, head of the National Council of La Raza, and Benjamin Todd Jealous, who leads the NAACP, described their recent collaboration to urge Congress to make changes in health-insurance options.

Speakers also criticized the nonprofit world for being too slow to embrace the need for changes. “Where’s the passion of the ’60’s,” asked Margaret McKenna, president of the Walmart Foundation. She questioned how nonprofit leaders could think a goal of ending childhood poverty in the United States by 2015, for example, was an acceptable timeframe when the problem is so fundamental and potentially fixable.

Added Mr. Jealous: “You need to allow yourself to be outraged.” The emotion, he said, “points out to you who those other friends are out there” that you might not otherwise think of who could become potential partners.