December 2004 · Volume 86 · Number 11 

Collaboration Calls for Mutual Accountability
by Gordon Whitaker, Margaret Henderson, and Lydian Altman-Sauer
Governments, nonprofits, philanthropies, businesses, and faith-based organizations all talk about the value of partnering to maximize the impact of their resources. Unfortunately, in day-to-day life, the pressures of competing interests, public opinion, and limited resources can shift attention from practices that support collaboration to practices that emphasize maintaining control. Stressing who holds the power in the relationship is often justified as being essential to ensure accountability.
If the emphasis shifts from collaborative to controlling practices, however, partners often lose sight of what it actually takes to build a mutually beneficial partnership and to make a constructive difference in community problem-solving efforts. Accountability can and should be built on something other than distrust and coercion.
This article discusses "mutual accountability" and the concept that effective accountability in partnerships should be multidirectional and multidimensional. Then, we provide a framework of four key questions that public partners might use in designing and defining their relationships.
Governments and nonprofits can design new accountability patterns if they are willing to share decision making, take time to deliberate and experiment, and respect the different perspectives of the organizational representatives. Although this article presents this notion in a sequential manner, in fact partners can start working together at any point if they commit themselves to these reciprocal approaches.
Mutual accountability is not an all-or-nothing approach. It can begin with a decision to join together to start a new project, to collaborate in collecting data about the performance of an ongoing project, or to work with each other in reviewing a project and deciding what's next.
Using the model of mutual accountability, the challenge for community partners is to move beyond the limited buyer/seller relationship often embodied in government/nonprofit contracts and to move toward real collaboration-ongoing, shared responsibility for improving public services.
Ways to Set Up Accountability Practices
Traditional approaches to accountability are often taken at arm's length, and they may be based on distrust and use blame, punishment, and control to maintain the relationship, rather than using shared interests and joint decision making. We call these systems "hierarchical accountability" and contrast them with mutual accountability.
Hierarchical accountability occurs when government decides on accountability processes, and nonprofits follow them. The practice might be that the government, without a conversation with the nonprofit, simply sends a contract that sets out the terms of the relationship and expects a signed copy to be returned. The communication about expectations and responsibility is decidedly one-way, from the government ("buyer") to the nonprofit ("vendor") and often projects a take-it-or-leave-it attitude.
Mutual accountability takes place when government and nonprofits together decide on accountability processes, and both parties follow them. In this instance, the relationship begins with a conversation in which both parties negotiate and agree upon the terms of the relationship. Communication is two-way, ongoing, and reciprocal.
These divergent approaches to setting expectations establish different relationships, yet either one may be appropriate in some service contexts. If the government knows exactly what it needs to buy to get the outcome it wants-a set number of meals to feed the elderly, for example-hierarchical accountability can work well. If the transaction is a one-time purchase and the government has no reason to develop trust in the vendor, then hierarchical accountability may be appropriate. Collaboration is neither sought nor needed.
Often, however, governments and their nonprofit partners are exploring ways to address broad public problems together. They are not sure which specific activities will be successful, so their agreements are worded in terms of general services or outcomes, like improved quality of life for a community's growing senior population. The two parties will need to work together over time and have reasons to build trust in each other.
For example, what activities are appropriate for a nonprofit economic development organization to take to revitalize a down-at-the-heels business district? And how should it be held accountable for its activities? Like other local governments, Charlotte, North Carolina, faced this challenge. Authors Maureen Berner and Matt Bronson (see "References") describe how people in Charlotte used practices of mutual accountability to guide a government/nonprofit relationship.
City officials in Charlotte partnered with nonprofit personnel and local property owners to assess the nonprofit organization's effectiveness in using funding from a special tax district to revitalize the area. A joint government-nonprofit review team collected information from local residents, from local businesses, and from nonprofit and city records. Team members deliberated on the meaning of this information and what it indicated about how best to continue improving economic development in the area.
What is important about this example is the partnership's relative success in achieving objectives and outcomes, in a relationship guided by the mutual accountability model. While the data suggested that the nonprofit had achieved only seven of the 12 initiatives it had undertaken, the assessed value of property in the district went up 20 percent from 2000 to 2002, compared with about 4 percent citywide. After several months of study, the cross-sector team unanimously recommended changes in the nonprofit's operations, raised city funding for the nonprofit's work, and continued interaction between the nonprofit and the city.
It's About More than Just Money
The public tends to equate accountability with fiscal integrity. This convention is easy to follow, especially given the general concern about the negative public attention caused by financial mismanagement. But, as author Robert Behn has argued, limiting accountability to finances ignores other important aspects of government/nonprofit relationships. In assessing the work of governments, nonprofits, or their partnerships, people are interested in more than just how funds have been administered. They also care about what has been accomplished and how fairly people have been treated.
This more service-oriented approach adds two accountability goals and expands the focus beyond just money:
Fairness. Standards apply to all people equally, whether the standards' subject is hiring practices for staff or eligibility criteria for clients.
Performance. Activities are carried out successfully and produce the intended results.
Financial integrity. Funds are administered in an honest and responsible manner, commonly in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

Figure 1. PAIR: Examples of the Dimensions of Mutual Accountability	
 	Fairness 
Standards apply to all people equally. 	Performance 
“Service” and “success” are defined. 	Finances 
Financial management is honest and responsible. 	
Product 
Who is expected to carry out which actions, and for whom? 
Mutual development of expectations about responsibility does not mean that the parties need to decide all the details together. It only means they need to decide together what each is committed to doing for the partnership. 	• Governmental practices are applied to all nonprofits similarly.
• The nonprofit applies the same standards to staff, volunteers, and clients. 
  	• Government defines the type of nonmonetary support it is willing to provide to its nonprofit partners. 
• The nonprofit has a clear definition of any other expectations the government might hold for this partnership. 
• The government and nonprofit jointly define the service to be provided, the criteria for “success,” and the content or plan for evaluation.1	• All parties agree on the amount and terms of payment, as well as on the definition and number of services to be provided. 
• The government clarifies the practices to be used for requesting and providing installments of financial support. 
• The nonprofit agrees to adhere to generally accepted accounting practices. 
 	
Alteration 
Who can invoke or alter these expectations? 
Answering this question defines the degree of flexibility that exists within the broad framework of responsibility expectations. 
The specificity of a partner’s responsibilities affects the degree of discretion that this partner may need. 	• Both parties clarify how much discretion the nonprofit has in deciding which clients to serve. 
• The government provides information about its funding and monitoring practices to the public. 	• Both parties clarify how much variation there can be in the number or type of clients the government expects the nonprofit to serve. 
• Both parties clarify how much the nonprofit can revise the program content without governmental approval. 	• Both parties clarify how much flexibility the government has in deciding when to make payments to the nonprofit. 
• Both parties clarify how much flexibility the nonprofit has in redirecting funds without a budget amendment. 	
Information 
Who should provide what information to whom about how responsibilities are carried out? 
Mutual accountability should encourage the sharing of information to promote improved performance. Discussions can begin by agreeing on measures that indicate success. 
Data and conclusions can be used both for internal decisions and for reports to partners. 	• Both parties clarify how much discretion the government has in deciding which project expenditures to reimburse.
• The nonprofit provides documentation of its hiring, client service, and personnel policies to the government. 	• Each party agrees to inform the other in a timely fashion of turnover of key staff, or other major changes within the working environment. 
• The parties agree on the kinds of reporting tools that adequately describe and document how things are going. 
• The parties agree on the content, format, and time intervals in which to deliver the reports.2	• The government provides summary data for and written clarification of the funding agreement. 
• The nonprofit reports specific financial information at particular times and allows its records to be reviewed upon request. 	
Review 
Who is expected to use what information to make decisions about the future of the relationship? 
Mutual accountability depends on involving representatives of all key stakeholders in reviewing the relationship and in deciding how to change it. 
A joint review is an opportunity for the parties to adjust their expectations to reflect what they have learned about working together or to fit changing circumstances. 	• Which questions of fairness, financial probity, or performance quality will be answered by the government, by the nonprofit, by both together, or by an outside agency? 
• Who will review information about the relationship and make decisions about changing it? 
• What kinds of changes to the working relationship can each party make independently of the other? What kinds of changes must be jointly agreed upon? 	
Footnotes 
1 If government officials have a precise definition of what tasks need to be done and how to do them, then it is easy enough for the government either to set up its own program or to buy the service from a vendor. As Behn and Kant (1999) argue, given a clear understanding of what government needs to have done, performance contracts can define appropriate accountability expectations. Picking up and processing recyclables is an example of a specific service that is relatively simple to define. 
To accomplish broader goals, such as prevention of child abuse, it may be more challenging to define either the plan of action or the responsibilities for what would be considered “effective public services.” People might understandably be unclear about how best to authorize responsiveness, organize reporting, or conduct reviewing. In these situations, discussions of mutual accountability could help the parties organize their expectations, to learn how better to meet the needs of those to be served. 
2 Nonprofits generally have multiple funders, each with its own expectations for reporting. Being required to present similar information in an array of different formats results in time inefficiencies for the nonprofits and ultimately for the whole community. To minimize the amount of effort it will take nonprofits to compose the reports, governments might consider either 1) specifying the content but not the format of the reports or 2) coordinating the expectations of report content and format with other local funders. 	

The mutual accountability model assumes that both the governmental and nonprofit partners take responsibility for ensuring fairness, performance, and financial integrity. One way to work through the process of defining these mutual expectations about future interactions is to discuss and answer the four questions posed in Figure 1. The order of exploration is unimportant, but these questions are presented in this system of categorization (PAIR: Product, Alteration, Information, and Review) for easier recollection. Putting the answers to these questions into practice constitutes accountability. Who answers each of the questions and how these answers are developed largely determines whether accountability is an adversarial or a collaborative process.
Spelling Out Mutual Expectations
The appropriate context for establishing mutual accountability will vary. Some conversations about mutual expectations might take place in large groups because they apply to all the organizations and people involved. Other conversations are more appropriately held in a one-on-one setting.
The crucial issue is to identify and involve the key stakeholders in setting performance and process expectations. If all the relevant stakeholders do not explore and define these mutual expectations together, they may well be operating with extremely different assumptions about what each party is to do. This can cause difficulties in the relationship, especially when unexpected changes happen.
To explore how unexpected changes might affect a relationship, one possible strategy is to use what-if scenarios. Discussing what each stakeholder might do in several possible new situations will help each party to explore the PAIRing aspects of their relationship.
•	What if a key staff person leaves? 
•	What if a program does not develop as planned? 
•	What if client needs or requests change? 
•	What if the outcomes are not as expected? 
•	What if a funding source disappears? 
•	What if criticism develops in the community? 
•	What if changes in the environment force unexpected change?
One response that often emerges from discussing these change scenarios is: "Don't set me up for surprises. Keep me informed." Staff can easily become so focused on managing new situations that they forget to inform or consult with their partners. Holding this kind of conversation at the beginning of the relationship, rather than during a crisis, can help maximize the support each partner can offer the other.
Will There Be Good Conclusions?
No single practice, process, or documentation-in isolation-can adequately ensure that mutual expectations will be met. Governments sometimes give nonprofits conflicting messages when they talk about the importance of building mutual trust but offer no acknowledgment for living up to or surpassing expectations. Instead, governments generally require one-size-fits-all accountability practices that convey the unspoken expectation that nonprofits continually prove they are not doing wrong, no matter how stellar their performance might be.
Oftentimes, negative behavior and outcomes by nonprofits can stimulate extremely negative reactions by government. Examples are increased monitoring through paperwork, a reduction in future support, a call for repayment of past support, or the development of a generally adversarial relationship. To set an entirely different tone for public service, choose to reward positive behaviors and outcomes by offering expanded opportunities to work together, longer contracts, increased amount or stability of support, celebration of mutual success, and simple acknowledgment of work well done. PM
Gordon Whitaker is professor of public administration and government and director of the Public Intersection Project. Margaret Henderson and Lydian Altman-Sauer are associate directors of the Public Intersection Project, School of Government, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Information about the project is available at www.publicintersection.unc.edu.
References
Behn, Robert D. 2001. Rethinking Democratic Accountability. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Berner, Maureen, and Matt Bronson. 2003. "Program Evaluation in Local Governments: Building Consensus through Collaboration." Popular Government, Vol. 68, No. 2, pp. 29-34.
Henderson, Margaret, Whitaker, Gordon P., and Lydian Altman-Sauer. 2003. "Establishing Mutual Accountability in Nonprofit-Government Relationships." Popular Government, Vol. 69, No.1, pp. 18-29 (Fall).
Whitaker, Gordon P., Altman-Sauer, Lydian, and Margaret Henderson. 2004. "Mutual Accountability Between Governments and Nonprofits: Moving Beyond Surveillance to Service." American Review of Public Administration, Vol. 34, pp. 115-133 (June).
Whitaker, Gordon P., Altman-Sauer, Lydian, Bluestein, Frayda, Brown-Graham, Anita, and Margaret Henderson. 2003. Accountability in Local Government-Nonprofit Relationships. ICMA IQ Report, Vol. 35, No. 5 (May).