Throughout the country, millions of citizens have crucial needs ranging from basic human services and resources to major societal support in response to severe circumstances. The reality is that far too many of these needs go unmet or are poorly addressed; services may be available from a diverse array of public and private providers but they are often uncoordinated, duplicative or not accessible. There are significant problems in service delivery systems and in organizational and agency capacity to meet their designed missions.

Response to needs must be planned and delivered holistically. The importance of collaboration is often acknowledged and organizations occasionally attempt to engage in some manner of collaboration; yet, the broader infrastructures, especially the funding systems for nonprofit organizations, do not intrinsically encourage collaboration. Public, private, and nonprofit organizations typically work in silos and compete for limited funds. As a result, they fail to effectively communicate with each other, rarely coordinate services, and are not incentivized in the integration of service delivery. Genuine and effective collaboration is not rewarded and is not pursued as organizational assets or capacity builders.

There is an urgent social and humanitarian need to cultivate effective and impactful relationships among public and private organizations and individuals who share in a common interest in responding to unmet basic human needs, overcoming crisis incidents, and overthrowing structural inequities. Philanthropic funders desire and seek more strategic and impactful results from the organizations they support in missions that are important to them. A major change is crucial in the way services are delivered, in the way service organizations utilize their capacities, and in the way public and private philanthropic dollars fund projects, programs and organizations.

The 3 Rs is a transformational formula that maximizes resources, reduces waste, makes community organizations and foundations more efficient, and – most importantly – brings services to where they are most needed in a personalized, coordinated and accountable manner.