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.
Learn More
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 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…
“Foundations have a long tradition of convening and funding collaborative groups with the hope that this will lead to large-scale impact. Although funder-driven collaboration sometimes leads to breakthrough solutions, foundations have also pushed the participating organizations into artificial, awkward, and unsustainable efforts. This article argues…
✴︎ Available with free registration “E3 Alliance is a collective impact initiative designed to align the region’s education systems so all students succeed and lead Central Texas to economic prosperity. This case study provides collective impact backbone organizations, funders, and partners with an overview of…
“The purpose of this resource is to provide a guide for partnership staff in addressing common challenges while building an accountability structure, particularly ensuring the structure is suited to meet local, contextual needs. It provides questions to consider when building your unique accountability structure to…
“Addressing community problems increasingly requires cooperation among the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors.” In this article from McKinsey Quarterly, “three executives explain how a civic alliance in America’s Minneapolis-Saint Paul region [called the Itasca Project] may point toward an operating model.”
✴︎ Available only with purchase from publisher “Partners for a Competitive Workforce is a collective impact initiative in Cincinnati, Ohio, focused on ensuring that employers have the talent they need to compete, and people have the skills they need to get good jobs to advance…
“This study examines the relationships between interorganizational network development and sustainability, organizational capacity for emergency management, technology utilization, and community disaster resiliency. It is proposed that cross sector and interorganizational collaboration (i.e., network development and sustainability), information communication technology (ICT) utilization, and organizational capacity have…
“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…
✴︎ Available only with purchase from publisher “Many of society’s most vexing problems must be solved through collaborative arrangements. Growing scholarly interest in collaboratives recognizes that the capacity for collective learning may play a critical role in their success. However, limited theoretical or empirical research…
✴︎ Available only with purchase from publisher “Integrative public leadership is a process of developing partnerships across organizational, sectoral and/or jurisdictional boundaries that create public value. This paper explores the concept in the context of the literature and illustrates some salient features of integrative public…