Since the 1990s, both policy and service delivery in Canada are increasingly being developed through collaboration and coordination as the federal government has embraced more networked forms of governance. Following the period of neo-liberalism in the 1980s and 1990s, voluntary organizations in Canada attempted to influence this shift in forms of governance and repositioned themselves in the process. This dissertation examines this process at several scales of action. It begins by placing the shift in governance in context, demonstrating that major reforms launched by the federal government in the mid 1990s opened up opportunities for engagement and generated new forms of interaction between the state and voluntary sector organizations. It then explores how voluntary organizations worked collectively to redefine the nature of their relationship with the state and analyze how their struggles gained expression at three scales of action: macro, involving broad state-sector relationships, meso, in a particular policy domain and micro, in organizational dynamics. As voluntary organizations developed an increasingly collaborative relationship with government officials, the research illustrates how they have tended to adopt more professionalized forms of representation favouring insider tactics and move away from traditional forms of advocacy. Data from 62 voluntary organizations in the field of children and family services indicate that while the repertoires of political action for many organizations have expanded to include new evidence-based practices relying on research and analysis, it is the larger well established voluntary organizations which have undergone the most profound transformation of their organizational structure. These changes have affected their hiring, human resource management, and organizational practices, as well as how they allocate resources across tasks. These transformations have reinforced a broader schism within the sector that has manifested itself at the macro and meso scales, with large well resourced voluntary organizations gaining institutionalized access and legitimacy in the governance process, and small voluntary organizations experiencing a greater level of atomization and political alienation.