Working with Local Collaboratives

1. Working with Local
Collaboratives
Dave Roncolato, Allegheny College
Afnan Rashid, NJ VISTA Leader
Robert Hackett, Bonner Foundation

2. Agenda
• Welcome: Introductions & Overview
• What are we talking about? Define terms
• Discussion: Why bother?
• Input: Examples
• Small Group Discussion: Questions from Worksheet
• All Group Discussion: Steps, Considerations,
Challenges, Observations
• Resources

3. What are we talking about?

4. Why bother?
• Collective impact
• Shifts the way you see and solve problems in the
community

5. Example
Mission Statement
“A mutually trusting and
respecting partnership among
Allegheny College, Crawford
Central School District, non-profit
organizations, families,
community members, local
business and industry, which
fosters intellectual enrichment
and ethical development for all
learners, with a focus on the
most at promise.”

7. Example
Mission Statement
“Meadville Medical Center,
Allegheny College, Crawford
Central School District and the City
of Meadville will collaboratively
seek opportunities to enhance the
community we serve. We will
implement, support and assess
programs and activities using the
combined strengths and resources
of the medical, educational and
governmental arms of the
community to build and sustain a
healthy community.”
Meadville
Area
Collaborative

8. Small Group Discussion
• Threads for success
• Knots and snags
• Students as master weavers
• Starting to weave

9. All Group Discussion
• Steps
• Considerations
• Challenges
• Observations

10. Resources
• CIC Building Partnerships with College Campuses:
Community Perspectives
• Randy Stoecker and Elizabeth A. Tryon The
Unheard Voices: Community Organizations and
Service Learning
• High-Impact Community Engagement Practices

11. Goals
• Core strategies and practices that they should
have in mind when they engage in a collaborative
• Steps
• How to involve staff?
• How to involve students?

12. Steps
• Reach out to existing vs starting new where none
exists
• Use local collaboratives using capacity-building
opportunities form?
• ask current partners what networks they are
part of?

13. Common Considerations
• Working on understanding different institutional
structures, calendar, language (e.g., hospital vs
higher ed)
• What is the investment? what do people hope to
get out of it?
• How to be respectful?
• What is higher education's role?

14. Challenges
• Finding time in busy schedule to reach out to new
partners
• Finding the right students with the skills and
interest
• Student schedules might not fit when collaboratives
meet
• Who supervises the student when there isn't a staff
director of the collaborative?

15. Observations
• Research is the most common request
• Common considerations

16. What will you do next?