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 Nonprofit Quarterly article takes a critical look at collective impact: “FSG was able to popularize the concept of collective impact — which is, arguably, a good thing: we do, of course, want people working together. But we believe that the systems-change approach, while more…
This SSIR piece takes a critical look at backbone organizations: “Are these structures useful, not useful, or actually destructive? Each of the attempts at codification, it seems, comes with its own problems of misplaced priorities and blindness to contextual realities that are lying in wait…
“For years, public-private partnerships (PPPs) have promised to help governments do more for less. Yet, the discussion and experimentation surrounding PPPs often focus on outdated models and narratives, and the field of experimentation has not fully embraced the opportunities provided by an increasingly networked and…
“Social impact bonds—also known as ‘pay-for-success’ contracts, since they are not true bonds, but rather performance-based contracts—aim to help governments experiment with new ways of providing social services. The basic concept is this: Private investors provide the original funding, and the government only pays if…
“To mitigate negative impacts and anticipate opportunities arising from high levels of global migration, we need a better understanding of the various factors contributing to the international movement of people and how they work together. Data—specifically, the widely dispersed data sets that exist across governments,…
“From climate change to terrorism, the difficulties confronting policy makers are unprecedented in their variety, but also in their complexity. Our existing policy tool kit seems stale and outdated. Increasingly, it is clear, we need not only new solutions but also new methods for arriving…
“It’s still early days for governments experimenting with pay-for-success (PFS) projects, in which governments ask private funders to foot the bill for social programs, and then agree to repay those funders if the programs achieve agreed-on results. As public budgets tighten and social challenges remain…
In this blog post for The Intersector Project, Tanya Nashay Sanders explores the power imbalances that can often arise in faith-based cross-sector partnerships: “Religious communities are being called upon to do more than just attend to the spiritual needs of their members. As we see…
From The Intersector Project’s “Research to Practice” series, this article looks closely at scholarly research and highlights key facts, actionable takeaways, and additional resources practitioners can turn to for related guidance. Cross-sector collaboration provides one avenue to improving the services of public schools, rallying partners…
This article, from the Nonprofit Quarterly’s Winter 2016 edition, presents a set of six principles “drawn from decades of research, organizing, and experience in a wide range of fields” that “facilitate successful cross-sector collaboration for social change in a way that explicitly lifts up equity…