Competition? Collaboration?

I had an experience today that has me intrigued about the potential for organizations to move from competitive world views to collaborative ones.

I was talking with someone from a very successful environmental non-profit about what I thought might be an exciting possibility for some integrated, collaborative, community-based programming with a couple of different non-profits (who all share a common big picture mission of sustainability). Up until that point in the conversation, there had been much agreement about the power of teaming up with other groups in order to reach a broader audience, and about the need to address local issues from multiple perspectives in order to more effectively support public understanding of them.

But as soon as the conversation touched on funding, grant writing, and integrated programming, resistance popped up. It made me wonder if we get ourselves into more competitive mindsets because we have a basic assumption that resources are finite, and if we don't "win" them, we "lose." I could see how fear of being caught short on resources (time or money) could establish and perpetuate such a sense of competition.

If instead, resources are perceived as being actively generated FROM a group working on a common need, would collaboration more naturally emerge? In other words, if resources were not seen as finite, but only as limited as the group, would competition be seen as counterproductive? If so, how do we move to such a perception?