Agency coalitions for targeted service delivery: foiled designs, failed development, but final delight

In light of recent federal attempts at promoting agency coalitions for developing and coordinating health education-risk reduction programs, the earlier experience of one state in promoting such a coalition is reviewed. A review of the literature on human service organization structure (domain theory), interorganizational collaboration and professional conceptual styles, revealed four necessary but not sufficient guidelines for promoting agency coalitions. First, some source of adequate outside funding must be obtained. Second, the coalition should have an organizational structure which has committees in each of the three domains of organization. Third, the self-interests of the various competing agencies must be recognized and capitalized upon. Fourth, to the extent competing agencies are involved, the collaborative projects should be either short-term and structured (if high interdependence is required) or long-term noninteracting projects.