Key Issues > Collaboration Across Governments, Nonprofits, and the Private Sector

Collaboration Across Governments, Nonprofits, and the Private Sector

Achieving important national outcomes, such as food safety, local economic development, environmental restoration, and homeland security, requires coordinated and collaborative efforts of a number of programs spread across the federal government, other levels of government, and private and nonprofit sectors. Agencies face a range of challenges and barriers when they attempt to work collaboratively.

ISSUE SUMMARY
KEY REPORTS
MULTIMEDIA
RELATED GAO LINKS
GAO CONTACT

Share This:

Collaboration can be broadly defined as any joint activity that is intended to produce more public value than could be produced when the organizations act alone. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) establishes a new framework aimed at taking a more crosscutting and integrated approach to focusing on results and improving government performance.

Agencies can enhance and sustain their collaborative efforts by engaging in the eight practices identified below. Running throughout these practices are a number of factors such as leadership, trust, and organizational culture that are necessary elements for a collaborative working relationship.

Collaboration Practices

Define and articulate a common outcome.
Establish mutually reinforcing or joint strategies.
Identify and address needs by leveraging resources.
Agree on roles and responsibilities.
Establish compatible policies, procedures, and other means to operate across agency boundaries.
Develop mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results.
Reinforce agency accountability for collaborative efforts through agency plans and reports.
Reinforce individual accountability for collaborative efforts through performance management systems.

Federal agencies use a variety of mechanisms to implement interagency collaborative efforts, such as establishing interagency groups, for example, in the area of food safety (GAO-11-289). Frequently, agencies use more than one mechanism to address an issue. For example, climate change is a complex, crosscutting issue, which involves many collaborative mechanisms in the Executive Office of the President and interagency groups throughout government (GAO-11-317).

For more on GAO's reports and recommendations, see the key reports tab above.

Looking for our recommendations? Click on any report to find each associated recommendation and its current implementation status.