The Intersector Project Resource Library comprises hundreds of quality resources relevant to the field of cross-sector collaboration from research organizations, advisory groups, training organizations, academic centers and journals, and other sources. 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 spans issue areas and partnership types and can help you find the information and tools you need for your cross-sector thinking and practice.
ABOUT THE RESOURCE LIBRARY
Each resource was carefully chosen based on the following criteria:
Relevance to Cross-Sector Collaboration
We chose resources where all or a large part of the content is relevant to some form of cross-sector collaboration, from collective impact to public-private partnerships to collaborative governance.
Relevance in a U.S. Context
We included international resources when their content was broad enough to be applicable to U.S. partnerships.
Came From A Trusted Source
The resources represented in our Library largely come from experienced practitioners, academics, and experts in this field.
Some of our resources are noted as “featured.” These are resources from trusted organizations and individuals that we’ve found to be particularly helpful.
Before exploring the Library, it’s helpful to review some definitions for insight into how we approached organizing our resources:
- Articles are non-academic, coming from popular sources like SSIR, The New York Times, or Governing.
- Books include both full books and book chapters.
- Cases tell the story of and extract lessons from existing cross-sector collaborations.
- Multimedia include powerpoint presentations, Twitter chats, podcasts, videos, and other interactive, audio, or visual resources.
- Reports typically present the findings of research conducted by research organizations, consultancies, think tanks, and more. (This category also includes academic papers that have not been published in peer-reviewed journals.)
- Scholarly articles come from peer-reviewed academic journals.
- Tools provide actionable guidance for practitioners and sometimes take the form of templates, worksheets, checklists, exercises, and more.
Some of the resources in this Library were created with a particular sector in mind, while others are sector-neutral. While you may want to search for resources for a specific sector, we urge you to explore resources that are sector-neutral, as these often hold valuable lessons for practitioners working in all sectors.
- Government includes international, national, state, county, and local agencies and offices, both elected and appointed.
- Non-Profit includes foundations, public charities, social advocacy organizations, universities, and professional or trade associations.
- Business includes large multinational companies, large businesses operating in the United States, and small and medium enterprises, from professional service firms to manufacturers of consumer products.
Some of the resources in this Library were created specifically for a particular issue area, while others are issue-neutral. While you may want to search for resources in a specific issue area, we urge you to explore resources that are issue-neutral or even those in other issue areas as well, as these often hold valuable lessons for practitioners working in all issue areas.
- Economic Development includes workforce development, business development, and job creation.
- Education includes early education, post-secondary education, STEM education, and workforce training/education.
- Emergency Management includes both disaster response and disaster preparedness.
- Environment includes natural resource, land, and wildlife conservation; clean energy; water stewardship; air quality; and sustainability.
- Housing includes homelessness, affordable housing, and housing financing.
- Infrastructure includes the financing and upkeep of U.S. infrastructure, including cybersecurity.
- Public Health includes access to healthcare and healthy foods, childhood obesity, and disease prevention.
- Public Space Development includes development of any space intended for public use, including park and recreational facilities, walkable communities, and civic centers.
- Transportation includes transportation planning and financing, public transit, and roads.
- Wellbeing includes human services, such as youth services, homelessness services, child welfare, public safety, and veterans services.
Scope refers to whether the resource is relevant to collaboration at an international, national, state, local, or regional scale.
Some of the resources in this library were created with a specific partnership type or model in mind. While you may want to search for resources relevant to a specific partnership type, we urge you to explore resources that were created for a wide range of models of cross-sector collaboration (these have not been assigned a partnership type) or resources that were created for other partnership types, as these often hold valuable lessons for those working on all types of collaboration. When reviewing these resources to assign them a partnership type, we deferred to how the resource described itself.
- Resources described as Collective Impact tend to refer to the collective impact framework laid out by John Kania and Mark Kramer in their 2011 article in SSIR referencing the five “conditions of collective success” — common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support organizations.
- Resources described as Public-Private Partnership tend to refer to partnerships between government and the business sector, often involving contracting or financing agreements, and often relating to private involvement in public transportation or infrastructure projects.
- Resources described as Collaborative Governance tend to refer to cross-sector partnerships that emphasize shared decision-making processes among partners.
- Resources described as Community Partnership tend to refer to collaborations with a particular emphasis on engaging local communities as partners.
- Resources described as Corporate-Non-profit Partnership tend to refer to partnerships between businesses or corporations and non-profits, foundations, universities, or community members.
- Resources described as Research Partnership tend to refer to research alliances among academia, industry, and government, often with a focus on research and development, or connecting research and practice.
- Resources described as Pay for Success tend to refer to partnerships in which government contracts with private partners who provide upfront capital to high quality service providers to achieve a public goal; the private sector partners are repaid based on the achievement of previously agreed upon outcomes.
READY TO BROWSE?
Do you know of any important resources we’ve left out, or want to provide feedback on how the Library can be more helpful to your work? Contact us at communications@intersector.com.