Place-Based Partnerships 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. Backbones – structures comprised of a single or multiple organizations that fulfill several core functions (such as community engagement, impact measurement, advocacy, and funding alignment) and that facilitate accountability across the partnership – are helping to lead and implement these localized strategies. Despite increased recognition of the important role played by backbones in cross-sector efforts across the country, developing and sustaining stable backbone business models remains an elusive challenge.
Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), with the support of Ballmer Group and in collaboration with Community Solutions and StriveTogether, embarked on a two-year project to understand how backbones 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. The tools and resources that follow comprise a "toolkit" intended to elevate the lessons learned from this initiative and 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.
Toolkit
- How Place-Based Partnerships Can Improve Communities: Key Functions, key learnings on the functions needed within place-based partnerships to advance outcomes in communities
- Backbone Structures of Place-Based Partnerships, five common backbone structures, including their benefits and challenges, plus tips for funders
- How to Fund Place-Based Partnerships, if We Want Them to Work, how long-term, flexible support can help realize the potential of place-based partnerships to promote systemic change in communities
- Funding Streams for Place-Based Partnerships, and Their Benefits & Challenges, the five primary funding streams comprising place-based partnership revenue models
- The People Behind the Partnership: Staffing Place-Based Partnerships, three key actions that place-based partnerships identified as essential to achieving and sustaining outcomes
- Four Tips to Plan for a Successful Backbone Leadership Transition questions for in- and outgoing leaders of backbone organizations in transition to consider
- Full Cost Workbook, a framework to identify the full cost needs of backbone organizations by naming six areas of cost
- Scenario Projections Tool, an excel workbook to help backbone leaders articulate and assess the financial implications of future scenarios, with a focus on revenue and staffing
About the Project Partners
Ballmer Group
Ballmer Group is committed to reducing and eliminating racial and economic opportunity barriers. We focus on multiple issues and areas that can impact economic mobility, such as early learning, K-12 education, youth development, college and career pathways, housing, health, and criminal justice. We are both a national and regional funder – we have a presence and invest deeply in southeast Michigan, Washington state, and Los Angeles County. Ballmer Group was co-founded by philanthropist and civic activist Connie Ballmer and her husband Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft, founder of USAFacts, and chairman of the Los Angeles Clippers. Learn more at www.ballmergroup.org and on Twitter @BallmerGroup.
Nonprofit Finance Fund
Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) is a nonprofit lender, consultant, and advocate. For more than 40 years, we’ve worked to strengthen nonprofit organizations and improve the way money flows to social good. We are committed to building a more equitable and just social sector, and helping community-centered organizations led by and serving people of color access the money and resources they need to realize their communities’ aspirations.
Community Solutions
Community Solutions is a nonprofit that leads Built for Zero, a movement of more than 80 cities and counties working to measurably and equitably end homelessness — and proving it is possible. Using data, these communities have changed how local systems work and the impact they can achieve to build a future where homelessness is rare and brief. As of 2021, 14 of those communities have ended homelessness for a population by reaching a standard called functional zero.
StriveTogether
StriveTogether is a national movement with a clear purpose: helping every child succeed in school and in life from cradle to career, regardless of race, ethnicity, zip code or circumstance. In partnership with nearly 70 communities across the country, we provide coaching, resources and rigorous approaches to create opportunities and close gaps in education, housing and so much more. We use data to illuminate problems and solutions, tackle tough conversations and deliver impactful results for more than 11 million children.