Cooperative Business Development

Through a member-driven process, we identify strategic challenges and opportunities with significant organizational and mission impact that can be effectively addressed through a collaborative approach. CEOs and senior leaders work together to frame the problem or opportunity and design a business strategy to accomplish the desired goal. This often requires inventing new financing models to pool resources more effectively.

This peer-to-peer business development occurs at partnership meetings and through ongoing conference calls, email exchanges and small working group sessions. Members fund a portion of the feasibility assessment, to ensure buy-in and ownership, and we raise the balance from philanthropic sources. We typically engage outside consultants with specialized expertise and the Network brings together the right public and private partners to capitalize the social enterprise and ensure its success.

This innovative process has been used to create five enterprises: Housing Partnership Counseling, the Housing Partnership Fund, Housing Partnership Ventures, Housing Partnership Insurance, and the Gulf Coast Housing Partnerships.