What we do
Collaboration Explained
Collaboration is a way of working together while retaining the separate identities.
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Consulting Services
As an organization development consultant since 1990, I specialize in innovation and problem-solving.
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Board Development
Karen Ray Associates has been helping agencies and their Boards grow and strengthen since 1990.
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Our Mission
The mission of Karen Ray Associates is to infuse innovation into public service systems. We do that by bringing innovation, focus and balance to inter-organization partnerships.
Collective Impact Requires Collaboration!
Collaboration has never been more important than it is right now.
To collaborate is to work together so smoothly that customers effortlessly move between the entities providing services to them. Collaboration creates transparency, efficiency, productivity and the personal satisfaction that comes from being a part of a genuine team doing important work.
Collaboration has never been more important than it is right now. Budgets are tight and demand for services is exploding. There are huge gaps between agencies and departments into which customers and good intentions disappear. New services, such as those demanded by methamphetamine abuse, require money and joint action to succeed. It requires collaboration.
It takes a large, coordinated effort to solve such problems. Designing, delivering and funding such an effort is difficult in any environment, but especially when resources are spread among independent agencies, each with their own power base, constituency, mission, methods and personalities. Collaboration is a process you can use to meet these challenges.
You Have to Believe You Can Solve Problems…
Some problems are so large they can only be addressed by joint action. Joint action begins with communication, cooperation, and coordination.
Collaboration is the most intense way of working together while still retaining the separate identities of the organizations involved.
The beauty of collaboration is the acknowledgment that each organization has a separate and special function, a power that it brings to the joint effort. At the same time, each separate organization provides valuable services or products often critical to the health and well-being of their community.
Given the variety of joint efforts and the intensity of collaboration, we define collaboration as a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by two or more organizations to achieve results they are more likely to achieve together than alone. The organizations believe they are interdependent. Partners agree that each organization has a unique role to play to address the issue. The relationship includes a commitment to mutual relationships and goals; a jointly developed structure and shared responsibility; and sharing of resources and rewards. Partners focus on the way in which the current system can be improved by changing individual organization policies and procedures.
Karen Ray Collaboration provides information and assistance to those who believe enough in a particular project that they are willing to collaborate. You have to be willing, you see: you can’t simply drag another person into a room and say, “We’re a team now.” What you can do is:
- Agree on the need that exists in the community.
- Agree on the contribution each organization will make to the common cause ( money, personnel, equipment, information).
- Agree on methods and measures of success.
- Partner your organizations in an effective collaboration.
About Karen Ray
Associates
Karen has been a consultant in organization development since 1990 working exclusively with the public sector. As a training and organization development expert, she specializes in innovation and problem-solving in non-profit and government agencies. Much of her current work focuses on inter-agency collaboration, leadership and teambuilding. Her time is split between on-going, in-depth consultation with organizations, and one / two day workshops. She’s known for active, highly participative sessions that focus on real-time problems and potential solutions.
Karen’s Books on Collaboration
Collaboration Handbook
- Find and attract the right people
- Build trust among diverse groups
- Change conflict into cooperation
- Select the best structure for your collaboration
- Keep people involved, enthusiastic, and motivated
Nimble Collaboration
Author Karen Ray reflects, “Collaboration between organizations, schools, businesses, or even sectors in society is never more important than in a tight economy.”
Collaboration Handbook
- Find and attract the right people
- Build trust among diverse groups
- Change conflict into cooperation
- Select the best structure for your collaboration
- Keep people involved, enthusiastic, and motivated
Nimble Collaboration
Author Karen Ray reflects, “Collaboration between organizations, schools, businesses, or even sectors in society is never more important than in a tight economy.”
Testimonials
Karen Ray is greatly responsible for systems change work in Itasca County as a nationally recognized collaboration expert. Karen is a fierce collaboration advocate – especially for children – and will not cease to work until all systems are aligned in support of stellar outcomes for our county’s littlest learners.
Karen conducted numerous training events and was consistently rated as an excellent trainer. She facilitated complex, often contentious, meetings with a needed firm kindness, enabling our group to sustain and fund the initiative. Her knowledge and skills were essential to our success.