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…
“The literature indicates that social capital plays a crucial role in facilitating collective action in collaborative governance. Despite this important role, the extant literature has not systematically conceptualized what forms of social capital exist in the context of collaborative activities and when and where such…
This article from Governing examines the challenges, limitations, and risks to government partners considering public-private partnerships in transportation infrastructure development. “There’s a long list of P3s that turned out to be very bad for governments, cases in which public leaders failed to ask the right…
In this SSIR article, authors John Kania and Mark Kramer write that while “the solutions we have come to expect in the social sector often involve discrete programs that address a social problem through a carefully worked out theory of change, relying on incremental resources…
This SSIR piece draws from the author’s book, which “introduces a methodology for establishing ‘blueprint’ that maps out a problem and a common language for defining unmet needs of the individuals and organizations involved” in a cross-sector collaboration. “While cross-sector collaboration is central to solving…
“Collaboration between the health sector and other sectors might generate new opportunities to improve health, but we need to understand the degree to which such cross-sector collaboration occurs, whether it has positive effects, and if so, the factors that underlie successful cross-sector, health-improving initiatives. This…
“The heightened interest in placemaking by a range of diverse partners and funders calls for the need to scale efforts, create a community of learning, and collaboratively address challenges. The practice requires active communication between placemakers about successes, failures, and lessons learned. This paper highlights…
In this Government Executive article, authors John D. Donahue and Richard J. Zeckhauser call attention to the potential for collaborative governance to move the United States past the debate over how big or small government should be, and to unleash “the unpredictable resourcefulness of an…
“Public-private partnerships aren’t new in higher education. But, in 2012, some especially compelling financial reasons accelerated development of public-private partnerships between public universities and private entities in their communities. Public institutions have never been under more pressure to find alternative sources of revenue to help…
The Building an Accountability Structure Toolkit aims to help members of a cradle-to-career partnership: Understand the importance of an accountability structure. View different types of structures and their respective advantages and disadvantages. Understand and outline the roles and responsibilities that need to be accommodated in…
“In the spirit of stewarding collaborative change, Alberta Education, the Alberta School Boards Association (ASBA), the Alberta School Councils’ Association (ASCA), the College of Alberta School Superintendents (CASS) and the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) formed the Collaborative Practices and Partnership Team. The team’s goal is…