Building Sustainable Collaboratives

We help communities design and build sustainable collaboratives that support increased equity, health, and wellbeing—especially for groups who are traditionally underserved. Our codesign process empowers community members to set priorities and have meaningful input into how those priorities are realized. 

Systemic Solutions

Our approach creates a shift from short-term, single-issue planning toward a systemic process of collaborating across sectors, understanding the broader context, and validating the viability of proposed solutions. People and groups with similar goals, but often different perspectives, come together to work toward comprehensive, equitable, sustainable initiatives. This human-centered design method incorporates experimentation, iterative prototyping, system mapping, and systems thinking principles.

Core Design Principles

  • Focus on equity as outcome, measure, and driver of change
  • Center on the community’s aspirations, beneficiaries, and power
  • Integrate cultural, relational, and structural perspectives
  • Build in sustainable business planning from the start

Integration

Our approach integrates key elements of sustainable collaboratives:

  • Governance and Partnerships: Decision making for community control of projects and funding, clear accountability
  • Data and Analysis: Support transparency in decision making, evaluation, and payment obligations
  • Capital and Financing: Support of community goals and sustainability of the work
  • Administration: Incorporate sound business principles,

    clarify responsibilities, manage risks for all, scale operations in community context

 

None of the individual elements are new; they have been tested in a variety of circumstances. What is new is their integration, the centrality of community control, and a business orientation that is incorporated from the earliest design phase. The system is evidence-based, scalable, and customized to fit specific contexts.