Optimizing Business-Nonprofit Hybrid Organizing to Support Health and Social Initiatives

Business-nonprofit hybrid organizing – i.e., moving beyond inter-organizational collaboration to combine for-profit and nonprofit organizational elements within a single organization in unconventional ways - offers a novel approach to supporting health and social initiatives. What form of hybrid organizing is optimal remains elusive, however. We conducted three, qualitative case studies of business-nonprofit hybrid organizing to identify lessons for optimizing this approach to supporting health and social initiatives. Data comprised 114 interviews with case study organization members, collaborators and local leaders, and observations, analyzed thematically. We characterized two forms of business-nonprofit hybrid organizing – an Appended form where a nonprofit unit is embedded within an established business, and a Blended form where a nonprofit entity functions as a revenue generating retail store. Each form engendered both benefits and costs for supporting the initiatives. Significance of these costs and benefits shifted over time contingent on initiatives’ changing strategic priorities and dimensions of local and wider contexts. Optimizing hybrid organizing entails an ongoing process of assessing and seeking fit between form and context in ways that allow the form to evolve. We elaborate implications for theory and for practitioners looking to harness the potential of hybrid organizing to support initiatives targeting social drivers of health.