Aug 19 2016 Weekly Briefing, August 15 – 19

Every week, there are new intersector collaborations surfacing across the United States and new, fascinating research and commentary that provides insight into the intersector — the space where collaboration among government, business, and non-profit sectors enables leaders to share expertise, resources, and authority to address society’s most pressing problems. To keep our readers, practitioners and researchers alike, in the know, we compile a weekly briefing that captures these insights, and we publish it here, on our blog, every Friday. If you like this briefing, you should sign up for our newsletter for more in depth coverage of the intersector.

Trust, authenticity, and community: our vital assets
This piece from the Nonprofit Quarterly archives doesn’t relate explicitly to cross-sector collaboration, but it touches on the qualities that make the non-profit sector unique. The author urges against non-profits adopting the language or practices of the business and government sectors. “If creating this sense of belonging and community is the nonprofit sector’s birthright, so to speak, it can be lost. It can be lost by imitating or identifying too closely with one or the other of the two major institutions that have come into such disrepute today,” he notes.

Wendy Jackson on why business must support early childhood education
In this Q&A with Metromode, the Kresge Foundation’s Wendy Jackson discusses why improving early childhood development in Detroit requires multi-stakeholder collaboration, particularly involvement from the private sector. “If companies want a stable customer base and a highly qualified workforce, now and in the future, they have a natural stake in ensuring the community writ-large is a safe, thriving place to live and learn,” she explains.

Pittsburgh enlists small businesses to fight blight
This Next City piece explores a new program from the City of Pittsburgh’s Urban Redevelopment Authority that enlists small businesses and non-profits to help care for vacant parcels of land throughout the city: “Ken Acklin, chairman of the URA board and Mayor Bill Peduto’s chief of staff, said not only will the arrangement provide regular maintenance to blighted lots, but it will economically stimulate depressed neighborhoods by providing jobs for unemployed residents and helping small companies to grow.”

Innovative public-private partnership honored at White House for excellence in STEM mentoring
Last summer we profiled US2020, an organization working to provide STEM mentors to underserved children across the United States. This year, as part of a STEM mentoring symposium at the White House, the organization gave the US2020 STEM Mentoring Award for Excellence in Public-Private Partnerships to the CH2M Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and W. B. Saul High School.

Encouraging and Sustaining Innovation in Government: Technology and Innovation in the Next Administration
This new report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government provides recommendations for how to the next administration can accelerate and integrate innovation in federal government. Recommendations include “Scale Collaborative Innovation”: “When government enables diverse participation and better coordinates efforts with other stakeholders, governing decisions are more effective and legitimate.”