Giving Compass' Take:
- Here are community-based examples of the differences between collaboration and civic infrastructure, one of which pursues equitable results.
- How can donors support equitable outcomes by helping build civic infrastructure in communities? How can this contribute to community development?
- Read about investing in civic infrastructure to invest in youth.
What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
Collaboration happens every day. From playgrounds and classrooms to workplaces and boardrooms, collaboration enables people to achieve shared goals. But collaboration alone won’t transform the systems that are failing youth and families of color and youth and families experiencing poverty. To create lasting change so that communities can thrive, we need to move beyond collaboration — we need to build strong civic infrastructure.
What makes civic infrastructure different from collaboration? Civic infrastructure focuses on outcomes rather than programs, uses data to improve, not just prove, and challenges traditional ways of working and take up ones that get population-level results. Communities across the country are building civic infrastructure, and supporting their work leads to better, more equitable results for kids and families.
Read on to dig into the differences between collaboration and civic infrastructure and see what this looks like in three communities: Bridgeport, Connecticut; Spartanburg, South Carolina; and San Antonio, Texas.
Read the full article about collaboration and civic infrastructure from StriveTogether at Medium.