Advancing Collaboration with Love146

About the Organization

Love146 is an organization that is working to end child trafficking and exploitation through survivor care and prevention.

Featured Guest
Jennifer Franz
Director of People, Culture, and Operations
Love146

Approach to Collaboration

Collaboration is one of the organization’s core values. In their start-up years, Love146 sought to fund and collaborate with existing work that was already in progress rather than trying to insert themselves as another solution. Nowadays, they collaborate with government agencies and local authorities in the US and abroad, as well as coalitions involved in human trafficking in various places. Their relationship with donors is collaborative as well, especially with corporate donors who may come to the table with innovative ideas.

An example of their collaboration involves the survivor care work Love146 does in the state of Connecticut. They collaborate with other agencies who refer youth to the program, where the social work team provides services to them. Their collaborative efforts also encompass teaching about prevention in schools and training others to conduct the direct implementation of these activities in states, including Texas, Minnesota, and New York.

Love146 works internally to foster a culture of collaboration. For example, one way they have mobilized this value is by taking departments within their organization that provides backend support, like Operations, Finance, and HR, and re-designing them to function collaboratively as a team. They recognize these departments have intersections with all the organization’s programs and work more effectively together to create the best solutions for the organization and its mission.

As a piece of advice for the sector, Jennifer recommends bringing diverse programs, skills, knowledge, talent, people, opinions, and ideas to the table to produce stronger results. In spite of some challenges, Love146 has achieved substantial success by being collaborative and working with others. It involves hard work but is very rewarding in the long term. Jennifer also highlights the importance of having an internal culture of collaboration, which makes it easier to engage in partnerships outside the organization.

Application of the 9 Considerations for Collaboration

Build Trust

Love146 takes time to develop strong relationships before moving forward, and the organization understands the value of them. This rapport is highly important for Love146, as thoughtfulness is also one of their core values. Being thoughtful means that you may not always act quickly.

This has proven to be very helpful in the long run. As part of the process of building this trust and relationships in the long term, Love146 engages with activities such as ensuring there is space for partners to collaborate as part of its galas and other fundraiser events. Love146’s staff also attends local meetings and networking events of its partners.

Have a Vision

Collaborating simply for the sake of collaborating can be a resource drain, which is why it’s crucial to have a vision heading into spaces of collaboration. Love146 is very intentional about operationalizing this as a core value that contributes to success, and the organization also recognizes it as a strategic method to utilize in the achievement of the mission. This looks like ensuring the right people are in meetings, being clear about decision-making, and designing the process through being informed by desired results.

Seek to Assure the Success of Your Collaborators

In terms of funding requirements, Love146 is strategic in ensuring they are transparent in advance on expectations to fulfill to make sure they will meet the expectations of their funders. They consider what policies need to be in place, what compliance issues they need to approach, and which results funders are looking for, among other elements. Knowing these requirements from the onset is very helpful to both ensure success and incorporate it into organizational culture and workflow in meaningful ways.

Take Stock

This has been a topic of discussion because what prevents Love146 from moving forward can be a lack of resources. Love146 recognizes where there are opportunities for them to take the models that are working and duplicate them or share them across the sector.

Start Small

Love146 started as a small grassroots organization, which meant there has been an organic approach to how we have evolved in our approach to partnerships which aligns with the consideration of starting small. As we grew and saw the effectiveness in the collaboration process, it led us to add it as a core value.

Fail Fast, and Build Rigorous Feedback Loops

Love146 are big fans of data and believers in evidence-based programs. For example, they conduct both pre and post-tests as part of their training programs, in order to assess their effectiveness. They also look at data to evaluate their survivor care program. Having benchmarks to evaluate their performance in different areas helps them to stay accountable.

Take a Portfolio Approach

This means conducting an assessment of the organization, the partner’s strengths, and areas of expertise to design a collaboration that assigns work/tasks/projects in a manner that reflects the strengths of all stakeholders. In addition, a gap analysis allows us to self-reflect on ways to delegate in spaces where it might not be a strength area for us but it is for the collaborator(s).

Consider Non-traditional Partners

Alongside collaboration, innovation is another core value of Love146. Because of this, we have been able to consider and build in non-traditional partnerships over the years. From building relationships with supporters which allow them to use their specific talents and skills in non-traditional ways to adding a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Officer to the Board who collaborates with the DEI Committee, the organization actively seeks out ways to increase the connection between innovation and collaboration.

Keep Your Donors Apprised of Your Collaborations

In Jennifer’s opinion, Love146’s communications department does an excellent job of keeping stakeholders informed of what is going on with the organization’s work. For example, they make sure their annual report is available online to all funders. Printed copies are received by specific donors, keeping them informed about the effective use of donated revenue and appraised about the use of the money.

Future Collaborations

For future collaborations, they would like to continue building on work with other organizations in finding ways to unify more support in the anti-trafficking sector. This will help to increase their effectiveness as a whole.

Read the next interview >

Download your copy of the interview