Today's paper:

Lee, H., & Liu, Y. (2024). All hands on deck: the role of collaborative platforms and lead organizations in achieving environmental goals. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, muae006 The full text is here.

What was the question?

Which way to govern local collaborations is more effective: top-down (state-led) or bottom-up (NGO-led)?

Why is this important?

"Collaborative governance" is a term used to describe the joint effort of public and non-governmental organizations to carry out public services. There is a long debate on who should run these efforts, and the answer is not obvious because both models have their advantages.

How did the researchers try to answer this question?

In the USA, there are many initiatives aimed at implementing alternative fuels and infrastructure deployment, known as 'Local Clean Cities Collaborations.' All of these initiatives are part of the same platform, the 'Clean Cities platform,' and therefore have equal access to knowledge and funding provided by this platform. The researchers compared the air quality in regions where various collaborations operated, both before the collaborations were established and at intervals after (10 and 20 years).

What did they find out?

Finding 1.  As you have already guessed, NGO-led initiatives performed better than state-led ones. Besides, bottom-up initiatives achieved and stabilised effects more quickly than top-down initiatives. 

BUT

Not all top-down collaborations were equally ineffective. Among the top-down collaborations, which included state-led, regional-led, and local-led initiatives, the regional-led type achieved even better and longer-term effects than nonprofit-led initiatives. What does this mean? It suggests that the effectiveness of collaborations was not determined by their structure—whether top-down or bottom-up—but rather by other factors (Finding 2)

Finding 2.  What have the members of the effective initiatives done differently?

• They have the same or very similar goals with the platform they belong to. All of them - effective and ineffective - were members, but the alignment of the goals was only typical for effective ones.

• They were more open to engaging interested parties and stakeholders.

• They highlighted the benefits of collaboration, such as "technical training and roundtables for peer learning and networking, funding opportunities and webinars, assistance with grant writing, and/or participation in the decision-making of the collaboration".

• They had "clear long-term goals, collaborative group structures and inclusive decision-making processes". Besides, effective NGO-led initiatives (but not regional-led ones) often emphasise the responsibilities of their members. 

Nothing new, right? This is the tragedy of social scientists: when they do find something unexpected, nobody believes them, but if they find something logical, everyone says "We knew this even without your research". 

What else should we know?

There is an interesting feature of the Clean Cities program: the platform offers both fixed and varied design rules for local collaborations. Here is how the authors describe it: 

"The program requires [collaborations] to adhere to fixed design rules, such as the identification of core members, the appointment of a coordinator, setting goals, and creating an implementation plan (Bourbon 2016). While following these stable guidelines, the program allows flexibility for each [collaboration]. Any interested actor can be the lead organization, and [collaborations] are free to decide which stakeholders to involve, geographical scope of target area, and what specific targets for pollution reduction they wish to pursue."

This is an important feature because most similar programs/donors only list the fixed rules, such as "we want the Province to be in charge of the project" (think: Interreg). In my experience, it works much better if they would explicitly say what other things members can decide on their own, without consulting with the donor. 

How can we use this information right away?

There is, of course, a difference between knowing and doing. You might know that all the things mentioned above are important (long-term goals, yeah...), but here is a checklist to help you assess if all of them are present in your collaboration.

If you are a manager or a member of a collaborative initiative:

• Are we members of a larger platform or project? If so, write down their goals and yours (seriously, write them side by side, it only takes a minute).

• If these goals are different, ask yourself: what are we missing out on by having different goals? Perhaps, you cannot access some funding, or most workshops are not useful for you. If so, bring this issue to other members.

• How can people outside of your initiative contribute to your efforts? Consider donations, volunteering, sharing information about your events on social media, etc.

• How can they find out about the ways to contribute? Who in our collaboration is in charge of making this information public and distributing it? How can we improve this process?

• What should they do before they can contribute? Should they become members? If so, is there a fee or probation period? Is there a quick and uncomplicated way to make a small or one-time contribution? Make sure there is at least one!

• What can we offer to people who help our initiative? Consider non-monetary rewards (feel free to ask me why): trainings, excursions, LinkedIn endorsements, thank-you letters, etc.

What about "collaborative group structures and inclusive decision-making processes"? We will have many checklists focusing on these topics specifically, and you can always reach out if you feel you have a problem with these issues right now; I will try to guide you. 

If you are a donor or work for a government agency that funds local initiatives:

• Write down all the requirements you have. Ask yourself: are they all documented somewhere? Are they supported by evidence (science shows it is better to do it this way), or are we doing it because it is more convenient? One of the most common requirements is to have one manager for the project. However, this is often harmful, and there are many alternative ways to maintain easy communication with project members.

• Ask your recipients what requirements they think you have for the project. Consider creating a Google Form where they can anonymously submit their answers. You might be surprised how many "rules" they believe you have.

• Communicate this to your recipients. Tell them your "fixed" requirements and, ideally, the reason for them. Also explicitly inform them of which governance-related questions they can resolve internally.