What is Strategic Restructuring?

	The Strategic Solutions Partnership Matrix View a graphical depiction of the range of strategic restructuring options available to nonprofits. The Partnership Matrix demonstrates the varying extent of integration among partners, and the distinction between programmatic and administrative partnerships. Click Here Why Consider Strategic Restructuring? Many nonprofit organizations are considering a fundamental change in organizational structure because of economic pressures: increased competition from business, government, and other nonprofits; decreasing federal and private funds; a shrinking supply of experienced leaders willing to remain in the sector for inadequate wages; and increasingly urgent and complex community needs. Others see strategic restructuring as way to provide more comprehensive services to the community, streamline the services that are offered, or expand geographically. For a detailed discussion of the reasons so many nonprofits are considering strategic restructuring, please see Beyond Collaboration.

Strategic restructuring is a continuum of partnerships — including but not limited to mergers, joint ventures, administrative consolidations, and joint programming — through which nonprofits attempt to anticipate or respond to environmental threats and opportunities. These partnerships are differentiated from collaboration in that they involve a change in the locus of control of at least a portion of one or more of the organizations involved.

Strategic restructuring is a tool available to nonprofit organizations interested in meeting environmental challenges, addressing organizational problems, strengthening services, and better accomplishing their mission. It brings to mind the old adage, "together we stand, divided we fall," offering nonprofits the opportunity to leverage the talents of their own and other organizations by working together in an increasingly competitive environment.

Strategic restructuring is different from strategic planning and reengineering:

• While strategic planning is an effort to define an organization's purpose and scout a path for the years ahead, strategic restructuring is a set of options that may be helpful in implementing the plan.
• While "reengineering" refers to large-scale productivity-enhancing process change, strategic restructuring describes an evolving form of structural change.