How to Start a Place-Based Partnership

Overview

Ready to bring your community together to get better outcomes for youth and families? This learning journey, Backbone Operations and Partnership Development, explores how to build a place-based partnership that helps a community work together and make a tangible impact.

Backbone Operations and Partnership Development Learning Journey

Overview

To drive meaningful change, communities need to be at the wheel. This three-course journey explores how to build a partnership that helps a community work together and make a tangible impact. You will learn how to identify everyone’s role in driving the work forward, find ways to shift power to community members and build trust to help partners work together with clarity and accountability. 

You should embark on this learning journey if you want to:

• Strengthen partnership development 
• Foster shared accountability 
• Drive meaningful community results  

Courses in this learning journey include: 

• Fundamentals of Partnership  
• Creating your Call to Action 
• Building the Table 

What is a learning journey? 

Learning journeys are a curated collection of self-paced courses, designed to help you move from understanding to action on key concepts needed to improve outcomes in a community. As you work through the courses, you will gain the fundamental knowledge that will lead you to application and deeper insight. If you want to dive even deeper, sign up for an optional quarterly live session to talk through what you’re learning and applying with peers and subject matter experts.

1. Fundamentals of Partnerships

1. Fundamentals of Partnerships

Place-based partnerships or collective impact organizations play a unique and important role in systems change, including leading change in policies, practices, resource allocation, and power structures. Join this mini-course to learn about these partnerships and the role they play in transforming local systems to achieve equitable outcomes for young people, putting more young people on the path to economic mobility.

2. Creating Your Call to Action

2. Creating Your Call to Action

Being able to explain why your work is important and encouraging others to work collaboratively can be accomplished through a powerful call to action. Join this self-paced workshop to learn about how to develop a call to action for your work, including the primary components- a powerful why and measurable result. 

3. Building the Table

3. Building the Table

Building an effective table is essential for any place-based partnership because the people and structures you bring together shape how decisions are made, how trust is built, and how power is shared. In this course, you’ll explore the core roles, leadership groups, and agreements that help partnerships work toward a common goal with clarity and accountability. Drawing from StriveTogether’s decades of experience, this course provides practical guidance on forming strong founding teams, designing inclusive leadership structures, and creating agreements that support collaboration and shared decision-making, whether you’re just getting started or strengthening an existing partnership.