Whether you’re working on a local collective impact initiative or a national public-private partnership; whether you’re a practitioner or a researcher; whether you’re looking for basics or a detailed look at a particular topic, our Resource Library can help you find the information and tools you need for your cross-sector thinking and practice. The Library — which includes resources from research organizations, advisory groups, training organizations, academic centers and journals, and other sources — spans issue areas, sectors, and partnership types.
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There are a number of academic courses, programs, and certificates offered in the United States in which cross-sector collaboration is a major theme. We hope this list will be useful for educators who are interested in how this topic is being taught at universities across the country…
In this paper, Living Cities offers “a strategic framework for cross-sector partnerships including describing and defining the traits that make up a strong foundation, factors that influence success, and behaviors of high-impact efforts. In addition to the theory, the paper steeps these ideas in four…
This landmark SSIR article introduced the concept of collective impact and its five conditions of collective success. “Collaboration is nothing new. The social sector is filled with examples of partnerships, networks, and other types of joint efforts. But collective impact initiatives are distinctly different. Unlike…
✴︎ Available only with purchase from publisher “Theoretical and empirical work on collaboration has proliferated in the last decade. The authors’ 2006 article on designing and implementing cross-sector collaborations was a part of, and helped stimulate, this growth. This article reviews the authors’ and others’…
“This report focuses specifically on a cross-sector collaborative effort to significantly reduce traffic congestion in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota. The organizers of the program concluded that a collaborative, multi-modal approach was crucial to making real headway on a longstanding, costly, nearly intractable…
This guest blog post from Project for Public Spaces’ Ethan Kent takes a broad look at the overlap between innovation, cross-sector collaboration, and placemaking. “At Project for Public Spaces, we see often how focusing on place can work to break down silos among sectors and…
This study explores the relevance of intersector collaborations — collaborations across the business, government, and non-profit sectors — in the context of the Boston Innovation District. Understanding how city-level innovation districts can harness the strengths of each sector is particularly important in an era of…
In 1994, the City of Seattle and the Parks Department began to notice something wrong with trees in city parks. Research found that Seattle’s 2,500 acres of forested city parks were at risk from invasive plants such as English Ivy, Himalayan blackberry, and bindweed. In…
Located within minutes of downtown Houston, Buffalo Bayou Park is a 160-acre, 2.3-mile long public space that had been subjected to years of neglect. Surrounded on both sides by high-use thoroughfares, the park was also difficult for nearby neighborhoods to access. In 2010, the Buffalo…
For decades, the riverfront in Detroit was dotted with run-down industrial sites, parking lots, and overgrown shrubbery, rendering it inaccessible to the general public. In 2003, a group of local leaders from the Kresge Foundation, the City of Detroit, and General Motors, spearheaded by GM…
The wide, straight boulevards in Crotona East in the Bronx encouraged speeding, and motorists frequently disobeyed traffic signals, creating dangerous conditions for pedestrians. When Kerry McLean, Director of Community Development for the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation, began working with businesses in 2009 to…
The Bethlehem Steel Plant closed in 1995, leaving an abandoned 1,800-acre industrial site comprising 25 percent of Bethlehem’s land. The redevelopment of this land presented the City of Bethlehem with a challenging opportunity. The plant was located in Bethlehem’s South Side, a neighborhood with a…
✴︎ Available only with purchase from publisher “Park officials began experimenting in the 1980s with a new approach: Shifting responsibilities to the private sector. By 2003 this ‘partnership’ strategy had become the linchpin of the park system. Private organizations — ranging from sophisticated organizations funded by…
✴︎ Available only with purchase from publisher “In a gradual but profound transition, New York’s park system had become dependent on private partners. The private sector’s involvement was pervasive by 2003, but came in very different forms. This case … highlights specific items to map…
“This special supplement, sponsored by the Presidio Institute, takes a close look at cross sector leaders: how they are different from other types of leaders, the role that they play in advancing social change, and why they are so important today.”