There is a fascinating Task Force on Homelessness at work in Los Angeles which can – and, I believe, should – stand as an object lesson for many in the nonprofit sector.

Often, those who lead nonprofits exhibit a strangely disconnected view of the business community. While most nonprofits are all too happy to have business leaders on their boards and to draw on the business community when it’s time to raise money, those same nonprofits shun the business community when it comes to policy.

The L.A. Task Force suggests that there is ample reason to call on business leaders when it comes to advocacy. In L.A., the Chamber of Commerce has joined forces with the area’s major United Way campaign to find new approaches to the city’s homeless issue, far and away the worst in the nation. L.A.’s United Way is comfortable on this turf because they’ve been addressing poverty issues as a matter of policy for quite some time. The Chamber is in the game for one simple and undeniable reason: homelessness is not good for business. L.A.’s homeless problems dampen downtown commerce, depress real estate values, intimidate potential business tenants and drain city resources which might be applied to other suitable purposes. The Chamber believes that solving the problem is smart business.

So the two agencies created their Task Force. It has been studying the issue from a logical perspective, looking at other cities which have successfully reduced their homeless populations. In every instance where that has occurred – and it has happened in most major U.S. cities – one key ingredient to success has been the participation of the business community. This is no surprise: business leaders are savvy about using available resources to get things done and keenly attuned to return on investment; they expect tangible, measureable results and shift course when those results do not flow from any given initiative.

In short, business leaders know how to leverage resources into results. Since that is precisely what every nonprofit in the nation seeks to do, there is good reason for them to draw on the seasoned, proven leadership the business community can provide.

While this may seem heretical to many in the nonprofit universe, the existence of that perception hardly makes the conclusion correct.

The next time your nonprofit is struggling to find a good solution to a difficult problem, it would be smart – and probably productive – to seek assistance from business leaders. Stop assuming that the only value business brings to nonprofit work is the writing of checks and start exploring other contributions your business leaders can provide.

A disclaimer: I sit on the L.A. Task Force and my agency played a role in creating the framework which led to its creation.