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Robert Taylor, board chair of The Educator Collective and managing principal of The Apartment Group poses for a photo with Alejandra Barbosa, CEO of The Educator Collective, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Chitose Suzuki\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
At a moment when funding for nonprofits is tight<\/a>, a longtime strategy in philanthropic circles is getting a national boost: mergers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Better Together Fund<\/a>, created in 2017 to facilitate nonprofit mergers and collaborations, is\u00a0reupping those conversations in Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the past nine years, it’s become a little bit more normalized, which was the intent of the Better Together Fund,\u201d said Margaret Black, managing director at\u00a0LH Capital and Lyda Hill Philanthropies<\/a>, one of the four founding funders overseeing the nonprofit. \u201cWe used to whisper the word \u2018merger.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n There are more than 2 million\u00a0nonprofits nationwide. In Texas, there are more than 259,092 nonprofits, according to Guidestar\/Candid data analyzed by the Communities Foundation of Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n Conversations about merging gained their first wave of traction in the early 2000s, Ben\u00a0Gose, a senior editor at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said. The idea was there were too many nonprofits working on similar issues that could make better use of limited funding by merging.<\/p>\n Related: North Texas Giving Day sees record participation as nonprofits face funding challenges<\/a><\/p>\n Funding is particularly limited today<\/a> as the federal government has pulled back on grants and philanthropic grants are in higher demand. Seventy percent of\u00a0nonprofits in a report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy surveyed in 2025 had their funding reduced from at least one source.<\/p>\n Better Together Fund hosted more than 100 North Texas nonprofit CEO\u2019s and board chairs in May for an event about nonprofit mergers as a strategy to tackle the financial challenges faced by\u00a0nonprofits.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Better Together Fund provides foundation-backed counseling and grants to nonprofits that want to merge, as merging can be a heavy lift that comes with a host of challenges and expenses.<\/p>\n Teachers participate in The Educator Collective’s Well U session, which includes conference style workshops and sessions. The Educator Collective is a nonprofit merger that was facilitated by Better Together Fund.<\/p>\n The Educator Collective<\/p>\n \u201cBetter Together grew out of a conviction that nonprofit collaboration should really be treated as a strategic growth tool, not about a sign of weakness or limited resources,\u201d Black said. \u201cThis is not a story of\u00a0funders thinking there’s too many nonprofits and everybody needs to merge.\u201d<\/p>\n Better Together Fund has supported more than 85 collaborations involving more than 320 organizations since 2017, with $7.1 million awarded in grants. Thirty-four of those collaborations were mergers.<\/p>\n Nonprofits are initiating<\/p>\n When nonprofit mergers first became a trend, foundations often pushed for them,\u00a0Gose said. That at times created a power imbalance that made mergers less appealing, he said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n After the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a>, he said, the topic became popular again. It is now common for\u00a0nonprofits themselves to initiate mergers.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how it worked with The Educator Collective, a nonprofit that develops resources and leadership programs for teachers and principals at all grade levels.<\/p>\n Related: Communities Foundation of Texas dedicates $10 million to education initiatives<\/a><\/p>\n Previously, The Educator Collective only provided support for North Texas teachers. Principal Impact Collaborative at\u00a0University of North Texas at Dallas offered programs to help principals. Leaders from both organizations had a dilemma: in order to teach their students effectively, teachers needed good principals, and in order to run a strong school, principals needed good teachers.<\/p>\n In early 2025, they approached Better Together about becoming one nonprofit. By August 2025, they finished a three-step grant process and merged under The Educator Collective\u2019s name.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a strategic decision to serve our clients more thoughtfully, but also because of the reduced federal funding and grants, having to be more efficient with our dollars,\u201d said\u00a0Alejandra Barbosa, CEO of The Educator Collective and founder of the Principal Impact Collaborative. \u201c…How do we get clear-cut about how to provide those services in a very cost-effective way?\u201d<\/p>\n Alejandra Barbosa, CEO of The Educator Collective, poses for a photo, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Chitose Suzuki\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n Both\u00a0nonprofits were small before they combined, which made the merger easier, Barbosa said. There were some operational and policy differences they had to resolve, but they did not have to lay off any staff. Instead, they shifted some of their employees\u2019 roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n Related:\u00a0Dallas\u2019 next-generation investor hub comes to life<\/a><\/p>\n Since merging, The Educator Collective has been able to serve 60% more educators and principals with the same amount of staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cIt is really, really hard, but it’s so worth it,\u201d said Robert Taylor, board chair of The Educator Collective and founder of the original organization. \u201cWe talk a lot about the organizational nuts and bolts, but ultimately the reason we did it is because we were convinced it would make us better at serving the people we’ve been called to serve.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert Taylor, board chair of The Educator Collective and managing principal of The Apartment Group, poses for a photo, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n Chitose Suzuki\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n Not always easy<\/p>\n The process for Healthy Futures of Texas, a three-way merger, was more challenging.\u00a0<\/p>\n Healthy Futures of Texas promotes access to sex education and sexual health resources. Its current form is the result of a merger between San Antonio-based Healthy Futures of Texas, Austin<\/a>-based The Texas Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and Dallas-based North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Teens<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Related: Dallas has a health disparity problem. Fixing it could boost the economy<\/a><\/p>\n With shared goals and employees that got along, they approached Better Together because combining seemed organic, Terry Greenberg, chair of Healthy Futures of Texas, said. Still, they needed help \u2014 there were a lot of questions they needed to iron out with consultants.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThree organizations is a pretty heavy lift,\u201d Greenberg said.<\/p>\n For starters, Healthy Futures had to determine where its leadership would be based since the organizations spanned the state. They landed in San Antonio but have a major office in Dallas and another in the Rio Grande Valley.<\/p>\n Greenberg went from leading a staff of 11 at\u00a0North Texas Alliance to Reduce Unintended Pregnancy in Teens to 50 at the merged Healthy Futures of Texas, so the nonprofit had to figure out how to combine the teams. Each of the nonprofits handled their money differently, a matter that was made even more complicated by the fact that two of the organizations were federal contractors and one of them was not.<\/p>\n Terry Greenberg, chair of Healthy Futures of North Texas and Chris Kroeger, past chair of Healthy Futures of North Texas.<\/p>\n Healthy Futures<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a lot of work to combine those three budgets and three pots of money and the accounting,\u201d Greenberg said. \u201cWe created a back office expertise that nobody really had.\u201d<\/p>\n The challenges that come with merging aren\u2019t just logistical, Black said. They\u2019re also emotional, which is why Better Together encourages boards to weigh in on how they can align each organization\u2019s operations and finances.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s identity, there’s legacy, there’s brand and pride and control, and all sorts of grief that goes through it,\u201d said Black.<\/p>\n Combining was more than worth it, Greenberg said. With a wider range of knowledge that each group picked up before combining, the organization’s educators now specialize in more topics. Becoming a statewide organization also opened the door to more funding.<\/p>\n The federal government recently discontinued a $2 million grant aimed at teen pregnancy prevention for Healthy Futures.\u00a0<\/p>\n With three organizations now under one umbrella, it will be easier for Healthy Futures to figure out how to pivot compared to when they \u201chad all their eggs in one basket,\u201d said Greenberg.<\/p>\n Meeting the moment<\/p>\n Major national foundations are encouraging mergers.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, the Ford Foundation and the\u00a0MacArthur Foundation are backing the Sorenson Impact Institute\u2019s $1 million Collaboration Fund that will support the consolidation of nonprofits focused on impact investing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Better Together is sponsored by Lyda Hill Philanthropies, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Hoblitzelle Foundation, The Meadows Foundation,\u00a0NexPoint Philanthropies and United Way of Metropolitan Dallas.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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