Place-Based Partnership Toolkit

From addressing homelessness to improving education outcomes, place-based partnerships – networks of people and organizations in the same geographic area who work together to change systems, improve community outcomes, and achieve shared goals – are a critical and increasingly utilized approach to addressing our most pressing social and economic issues. 

Nonprofit Finance Fund, with the support of Ballmer Group and in collaboration with Community Solutions and StriveTogether, embarked on a two-year project to understand how backbone organizations of place-based partnerships operate and to gain insights into the factors that impact their sustainability and success in driving community-level outcomes. This project included extensive data analysis on over 80 place-based partnerships across the country, interviews with over 85 individuals from 30 of those partnerships, and in-depth consultation with 5 backbone organizations. Lessons learned from this initiative have been distilled into a comprehensive "toolkit" to support the work of practitioners within existing place-based partnerships, communities contemplating starting a place-based partnership, and funders that invest in these efforts.

Click here to access the full toolkit, including resources about functions and structures, funding dynamics, staffing, and more.