Cancer Health Alliance of Metropolitan Chicago

This case is about how four independent, community-based, non-medical centers that offered professional services and programs to cancer patients on a voluntary non-fee basis in the 1990s came together to form The Cancer Health Alliance in 2003-2004 as a separate nonprofit to help them achieve more of their mission and be more sustainable.

The learning objective of this case is to understand why it is so difficult for small independent nonprofits with similar missions, activities, programs, and funding to collaborate to achieve more mission. It also teaches students to understand how less complex nonprofit alliances begin, how they progress along an alliance continuum, and how to explore the options for future growth.