Survival, sustainability and service: Challenging resource dependency in the Western New York nonprofit industry through intra-industry collaboration

The nonprofit industry is an essential actor in the provision of services to individuals in need. Nonprofit Organizations are constrained by their need for resources from external sources in order to survive and provide services. The concept of resource dependence is tested here with proposed models of collaboration. This research defines collaboration as an aggregation of resources, with a single body responsible attracting and allocating funding for all members of the collaboration. Through collaboration, organizations may achieve a level of sustainability that does not require external resources and allows for organizational behavior to obtain further agency. A nonprofit industry with a higher degree of agency will have fewer constraints in shifting their mission to address emerging problems. This research tested four hypotheses: 1) Collaborations will improve survival of organizations, achieving a more balanced revenue generation model, 2) Collaborations allow organizations to be less resource dependent by increasing revenue generated from programs, 3) Collaboration will show an improved association between revenue from programs and total revenue and assets, and 4) There is no unexpected spatial pattern of revenue generation in the study area. This research finds that collaboration improves outcomes of survival, from 53% as independent actors to 72% in collaborations, in the event of a shock-revenue lost from absence of external resources. In addition, collaboration mitigates the potential loss of program funding for the next fiscal year. An interesting spatial arrangement is found among the organizations' revenue strategies that is evidence for a larger uneven spatial development process at work in Western New York. Using Local Moran's I, this research found that urban cores, with elevated levels of poverty and individuals requiring nonprofit services, are also those that house the NPO which are most vulnerable to failure due to resource dependency. A hybrid model was generated to offset this phenomenon and produce an equitable collaboration to improve access in all regions.;Keywords: nonprofit, collaboration, resource dependence, sustainability.