The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory: Assessing Your Collaboration's Strengths and Weaknesses

This inventory is a practical tool for discovering how your collaboration is doing on the twenty factors that research has shown influence success (see Collaboration: What Makes It Work). The inventory takes about fifteen minutes to complete. It can be distributed to a small group of leaders in the collaborative, during a general meeting, or via mail to all members for the most complete picture. You can tally your score manually or online. The tool includes complete instructions for administering, scoring, and interpreting the results, plus a definition of collaboration and descriptions of the twenty success factors. Groups that are considering collaboration can use it to see if they have what they need to succeed. They can then act quickly to shore up weaknesses and capitalize on strengthsóbefore formalizing the collaboration, or in its early stages. Established collaborations can use the inventory to troubleshoot problems, demonstrate successes to funders, and uncover differences in how participating organizations perceive the collaboration. Consultants to collaborations can use the tool to help the collaboration assess itself and to intervene for the most effective results.

PAUL W. MATTESSICH, Ph.D., is director of Wilder Research Center, which dedicates itself to improving the lives of individuals, families, and communities through applied research. Mattessich has assisted local, national, and international organizations with strategic planning, organizational improvement, and evaluation. Mattessich has been involved in applied social research since 1973, and is the author or coauthor of more than two hundred publications and reports. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of Minnesota.

As a research assistant at Wilder Research, MARTA MURRAY-CLOSE conducted literature reviews and maintained literature databases for research studies. She is fluent in English, Spanish, and French and assisted the center with multilingual interviewing and international communications. Murray-Close holds a bachelor of arts degree in psychology from Smith College.

BARBARA R. MONSEY was a research associate at Wilder Research Center and now lives in Seattle, Washington, coordinating clinical research projects for the Center for Health Studies at Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. She has formal training in anthropology and a master's degree in public health education from the University of North Carolina.