Out of a field of 764 applicants nationwide, 7 community partnerships have been chosen to participate in the Pathways to Collaboration Workgroup.

• Community Leadership Team of Beyond Welfare
• Humboldt Park Empowerment Partnership
• The MIRACLE Group
• Organization of the NorthEast
• People in Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER)
• Southeast Oklahoma Champion and Enterprise Community
• Tri-County Workforce Alliance

Each of these "cutting edge" partnerships has impressive experience and expertise in running a collaborative process that is a real resource to people in its community - especially to residents who had little influence in community decision making before. Encompassing diverse populations and geographic contexts, these partnerships are solving complex community problems that their residents care deeply about. They are doing so by actively engaging the people who are directly experiencing problems in the problem-solving process.

Over the next three years, working with each other and a technical support team, the members of these partnerships will explore their collaborative processes in unprecedented detail. By documenting exactly what can be accomplished through community-driven collaboration, and what it takes (at the most practical level) to make that happen, the Workgroup will generate new knowledge and tools that can strengthen the efforts of the broad array of people and organizations that participate in, evaluate, and fund community partnerships. Read on to find out:

• why the Pathways to Collaboration Workgroup is needed
• how the Workgroup partnerships were selected and who they are
• what to expect from the Workgroup
• how to stay connected and learn with us

The Pathways to Collaboration Workgroup is being organized by the Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health at The New York Academy of Medicine and is funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Both organizations share an interest in understanding how communities can use collaboration effectively to give voice to people who have had little influence in community decision making, and to enable a broad array of community members to work together constructively to address issues they care about. The two organizations also share a commitment to applying this knowledge to improve the quality of collaborative efforts so that community partnerships can fulfill their tremendous (but often unrealized) potential to identify, understand, and solve complex problems.

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