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Deciding to merge is only the first step in a long process. All too many organizations successfully negotiate their merger agreement, but fail to realize the full benefits of the partnership. Having focused on the execution of the merger, organizations overlook the critical need to put energy and focus into the post-merger integration.

La Piana Associates’ latest book — The Nonprofit Mergers Workbook, Part II: Unifying the Organization after a Merger — can help take you the rest of the way clearly, manageably, and planfully. Using a practical, hands-on approach, supplemented by numerous examples from La Piana Associates' research and experience, the Workbook Part II addresses how to effectively integrate organizations that have merged.

Written for the nonprofit leader, this book helps organizations create a comprehensive plan to achieve integration — bringing together people, programs, processes, and systems from two (or more) organizations into a single, unified whole. It addresses large strategic issues, as well as small practical ones — providing a roadmap to successful post-merger integration.

Included with the book is a free CD-ROM which provides a detailed template for an integration plan, as well as sample integration plans, worksheets, checklists, tips and quotes from leaders of merged organizations, all of which will help organizations in implementing their own merger integration process.

The specific topics covered in the Workbook Part 2 are as follows:

Section I: Going the Distance

Provides a broad view of integration, its challenges, and how to meet them. Topics include:

• The basic tenets of organizational change
• What success looks like in a well-implemented merger
• The purpose and content of an integration plan
• How to address people issues through leadership and planning
• The relationship between effective leadership, effective communication, and their combined contribution to integration success

Section II: Creating an Integration Plan

Takes you step-by-step through each facet of this essential process. You'll learn about:

• Integration of the board, management, staff and volunteers, culture, programs, communications and marketing, and systems--one by one, in detail
• Common challenges, roadblocks, and crises that will arise, and how to respond when they do
• Processes, procedures, and interventions likely to be most helpful and necessary

By Melissa Mendes Campos

Published by the California HealthCare Foundation, this issue brief describes the benefits and challenges of community clinic mergers. Based on extensive interviews with clinic executives, board members, and other experts in the field.

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Twelve leaders from foundations across the nation met in San Francisco on March 9, 2012 to share practical advice for building successful funder initiatives to support nonprofits in pursuing different forms of partnership.

Co-sponsored by the Tides Center, the Foundation Center, and La Piana Consulting, this invite-only event engaged participants in examining the state of the field, learning from one another’s efforts, and exploring opportunities for funder collaboration to continue this work.

The group has graciously allowed us to share this report detailing the process and highlighting key takeaways to inspire and inform others.

Funded by the James Irvine Foundation, this report, by Heather Gowdy, Alex Hildebrand, David La Piana, and Melissa Mendes Campos, explores La Piana Consulting's reseach initiative NonprofitNext and the key trends driving the future of the nonprofit sector.  The trends include generational and other demographic shifts, the rise and impact of social media and other technological advances, the growing importance of networks as a means for effecting change, the role of volunteerism and civic engagement in society, and the blurring of sector boundaries. For more information and to join the conversation, check out the NonprofitNext blog.

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