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…
“Given the growing number of partnerships, monitoring and evaluation of, for, and through partnerships faces new challenges. Partnering raises critical questions about the extent to which collaboration actually adds value in terms of both process and outcomes, and how judgments are made (Atkinson, 2005). Evaluating…
✴︎ Available with free registration The easiest and least effective way for partnership to emerge is to just let them happen.” But this resource outlines “a five-step process that individuals or groups can use to be much more deliberate in building strategic partnerships” and to…
“Mercy Corps has a 32-year history of working with local partners in over 113 countries and collaborates with an increasingly wide and diverse set of partners at all levels of the public, private, and civil society sectors to tackle major global challenges. Our Principles of…
“As a companion piece to the report ‘Catalyzing Transformational Partnerships between the United Nations and Business,’ this guide serves as a step-by-step roadmap for maximizing the transformative potential of your partnership. As transformational partnerships cannot exist without a strong foundation in place from the outset,…
“This Best Practices Guide is intended to assist commercial and government entities in the process of organizing and executing a collaborative solar purchase. … The guide outlines a list of best practices, which together constitute a 12-step process to capture the economic and practical benefits…
“The Better Data toolkit helps partners in a collective impact effort collect better data and use it to drive decisions. It guides them to collect complete data about youth outcomes, community supports, and leadership actions; align and connect data for decision making across systems; and…
While this resource is not designed specifically for cross-sector collaborations, it provides a comprehensive checklist to assist organizations with establishing and maintaining data governance programs and provides considerations that may be helpful for collaborations, such as assigning decision- making authority over data, conducting data inventories,…
“As pressures on faith-based and community organizations increase and the issues we face become more complex, the idea of partnerships can hold much promise. … To make real the promise of partnerships, however, we must be prepared to build, sustain, and evaluate them in a…
“These tools were originally developed by WWF-UK’s Organisation Development Unit in 2001. … Since the toolbox was originally produced it has been used extensively with partner organisations. The tools have been used both in the UK and internationally — for example with civil society organisations…
This guide describes seven principles for public engagement — principles that “reflect the common beliefs and understandings of those working in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution, and collaboration.” The authors write, “The more any given public engagement effort takes into consideration the following…