Massive job losses, complications of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, entrenched racial disparities and domestic terrorism.

Such complex problems require the combined efforts of organizations working together. This is especially true in the nonprofit sector. Simply put, the survival of nonprofits addressing social issues is essential to our democracy.

But nonprofits can’t do it alone, and they can’t have much of an impact without critical resources.

Nonprofit leaders are pressured to scale up their efforts through collaboration, and the pressure often comes from a funder — sometimes the government and sometimes a foundation — urging or requiring the nonprofit to work with others as a condition for getting money.

For example, the Common Grant Application, adopted by various funders in many states, asks organizations to document their collaborative activity.

There’s nothing wrong with this expectation, and it makes sense that nonprofits should improve or expand on their services by partnering with others. But frustratingly, results for funder-supported collaboration are mixed. Often, funders suggest collaboration but fail to provide resources needed to sustain these partnerships.

For example, the budget of the Summit Education Initiative in Akron, Ohio, increased fivefold, to $1.5 million, in the six years after reorganizing with a cradle-to-career focus. It was a substantial increase, to be sure, but surely only a fraction of what the network would need if it continued to pursue long-term efforts in improving educational outcomes across the city.

Rather than seeing collaboration as something “extra” for nonprofits to take on, what if funders invested in that capacity to collaborate?

Unlike the government, people willingly give nonprofits their time and money. Unlike businesses, nonprofits are specifically organized to respond to societal needs. Compared to both of these sectors, the broader community is poised to trust in nonprofit efforts , and funders can honor this trust by scaling up their resources.

It’s time to invest in nonprofits’ collaborative capacity.

This may mean providing infrastructure support, such as the shared database that enabled the Chicago Benchmarking Collaborative to track program outcomes across six organizations. In doing so, it has a better sense of how these organizations were serving the city, not their own program recipients.

It may mean nonprofits scale up their financial support as the collaboration needs it. Or it may mean investing in exploring an idea that precedes a formal collaboration.

It may mean acting as a matchmaker, introducing organizations and building the trust critical to a successful collaboration. Or it can be providing network coaching to ensure that nonprofit leaders meet the demands of their organization and the partnership itself.

Innovative funders promote innovative solutions resulting in successful collaboration. Nonprofit leaders are fond of quoting the African proverb that suggests, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Funders can help nonprofits go faster and farther, together.

Katherine R. Cooper is an assistant professor of communications at DePaul University and a fellow with The OpEd Project, a nonprofit that promotes more diversity among thought leaders. She wrote this for the Fulcrum, a news platform covering efforts to fix our governing systems.