Quick Guide
Definition: Establish vehicles and venues to support/develop meaningful collaboration.
Why It Matters: It is essential to build a framework for collaboration within an organization. It allows for more efficient processes, better communication, and increased productivity leading to overall improved health outcomes for communities.
| Type | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Examples | Power-building Partnerships for Health: Lessons from Santa Barbara About Building Power to Protect Farmworker Health and Advance Health Equity | This article highlights the importance of relationship building within Power-Building Partnerships for Health (PPH) and discusses Santa Barbara County Public Health Department’s collaboration with two community organizing groups. |
| Templates | Preparing for Successful Public Meetings: Checklist for Before, During, and After | This tool provides a short, accessible checklist for preparing successful public meetings with communities and partners. |
| Templates | Partnership Assessment Tool for Health (PATH) | This fillable tool is intended for community-based organizations (CBOs) and healthcare organizations engaged in partnerships to provide services to populations in need. The tool includes a partnership questionnaire and discussion guide to facilitate future meetings. |
| Templates | PATH Addendum | This tool is an addendum to PATH that allows for CBOs and healthcare organizations to identify benchmark characteristics within partnerships that advance health equity. |
| Trainings | Essentials of Collaboration | This 1-hour interactive course examines how efficient teamwork can result in improved population health. Using a case study to explain essential principles, you will receive guidance on breaking down silos, aligning activities across sectors, and cooperating effectively. The course's definition of a successful collaboration lays the groundwork for teaming up with others to improve your community. |
| Guides | Effective Public Engagement through Strategies and Communication | This guide serves as a tip sheet and offers communication strategies that local governments can incorporate into public engagement efforts. The sheet shares steps organizations can take before, during, and after engagement. |
| Guides | Engaging Your Community : A Toolkit for Partnership, Collaboration, and Action | This toolkit is designed to help organizations build effective partnerships, carry out creative outreach initiatives, and develop persuasive communications that speak to various community groups and populations. The toolkit provides instructions for conducting self-evaluations of a partnership, as well as outreach techniques to involve community residents and other organizations. It also provides resources for enhancing these tactics to increase organizational capacity. |
| Guides | Planning Public Engagement: Key Questions for Local Officials | This guide provides 14 key questions for local agencies to consider when engaging with the public. |
| Guides | Promoting Effective Public Participation at Governing Body Meetings: Opportunities to Deepen Public Participation and Trust | This publication provides suggestions to improve the process of receiving public input during local agency meetings and opportunities to deepen public participation and trust. |
| Guides | Resources for Collaboration and Power Sharing | This guide is for health departments seeking to share authority with community power-building organizations (CPBOs) and provides action-oriented steps to improve collaboration. |
| Guides | Resources for Collaborations and Power Sharing Between Government Agencies and Community Power- Building Organizations | This guide outlines the benefits of partnerships between government entities and community power-building groups and offers a variety of models for collaboration. |
| Guides | Strengthening and Sustaining Public Engagement: A Planning Guide for Communities | This guide instructs local governments, elected officials, and/or school systems on how to strengthen and sustain public engagement in planning strategies. Considerations such as types of engagement, when to prioritize engagement, and how to build more robust engagement methods are included. |
| Guides | NACCHO Communications Plan Workbook | The Communications Plan Workbook by NACCHO provides a structured, five-step approach to help local health departments design effective communication strategies. The plan guides users through: (1) establishing clear and measurable goals, (2) defining key audiences, (3) identifying core messages, (4) creating a tactical outreach plan with appropriate communication channels, and (5) specifying a timeline for implementation. This resource emphasizes strategic planning to ensure communication efforts are targeted, efficient, and aligned with public health objectives in order to create networks for information sharing with partners. |
| Guides | Evaluating Your Communication Plan | This NACCHO guide supports local health departments in strengthening their communication efforts through structured evaluation. Organized into key sections—Why Evaluate, What to Evaluate, How to Evaluate, and Using Evaluation Results—the document walks users through the rationale for evaluation, selecting meaningful metrics, applying practical methods, and translating findings into improved strategies. It emphasizes continuous learning, stakeholder engagement, and aligning communication goals with measurable outcomes to enhance the quality and impact of public health messaging. |
| Guides | Prowers County Public Health Risk Communication Plan | Developed by Prowers County, Colorado, this plan outlines strategies for delivering timely, accurate, and accessible information to vulnerable or special populations during public health emergencies. It emphasizes identifying subpopulations with unique communication needs and tailoring outreach accordingly. The plan serves as a practical example for local health departments, highlighting the importance of inclusive planning, culturally appropriate messaging, and coordination with trusted community partners to ensure no group is left behind in crisis communication efforts. |
| Guides | Integration to Improve Health: Partnership Models between CBOs and Healthcare Organizations | This resource focuses on common approaches organizations can take by working together to approve health outcomes through service models, financial relationships, data, partnerships, and governance. Each category has a variety of real-life examples that serve as additional learning opportunities for readers. |
| Frameworks | Communicating About Health Equity Concepts (CHEC) | Communicating using a health equity frame means focusing on creating broader understanding of the social, structural, and systemic factors that may impact health outcomes. This resource offers public health professionals three evidence-based principles with tangible strategies to clearly and effectively communicate about health equity concepts with diverse audiences. |
| Frameworks | Build Health Challenge: Keys to Collaboration | The BUILD Health Challenge (BUILD) is a framework that identifies four dynamic stages of collaboration that are essential to developing successful partnerships aimed at promoting health equity. The stages include examples, and takeaways for organizations for Building Relationships, Establishing a Team, Defining Roles and Creating Structure, and Communicating to Build Trust. |
| Articles | CBOs Perspective on Improving Health and Social Services Integration | This article discusses the perspectives of CBOs on service delivery and suggestions for improving health system partnerships. To create lasting and sustainable partnerships, CBOs must feel supported and the relationship must be mutually beneficial. |
| Articles | Collaboration Between Health Systems and CBOs | This executive summary highlights different approaches to overcoming early challenges in forming new partnerships. It provides examples and discusses common themes and lessons learned. Each strategy ensures the voices of the CBOs and their communities are valued in the priority setting and decision-making process. |
| Articles | Advancing Healthcare and CBOs to Address Social Determinants of Health | This executive summary focuses on the collaboration between three healthcare-CBO partnerships. It is intended to help refine relationship with current or existing partners and/or agencies exploring new collaborations. |
| 2023 CA LHJ Examples | San Mateo County Health: Community Collaboration | The Government Alliance for Race & Equity (GARE) at San Mateo County Health provides a network to share information and collaborate on equity efforts. Structures such as the Behavioral Health and Recovery Services’ Health Equity Initiatives, and a new Community Collaborative Model with Public Health, provide avenues for connection, communication, and trust-building between County Health and community. Structures vary by division. |
| Type | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Examples | 2-1-1 San Diego - Connecting Partners through the Community Information Exchang | Developed by 2-1-1 San Diego, this case study highlights the Community Information Exchange (CIE) data platform, which enables health and social services to obtain a better understanding of interactions across systems, agencies, and community services. |
| Examples | Community Air Protection | The Community Air Protection (SNAAQ) project, run by the California Air Resources Board, awarded Community Air Grants to nonprofits in North Sacramento, Oak Park/Fruitridge, and Meadowview to address air pollution. The project includes community-led air monitoring, multilingual engagement, youth education, and the development of neighborhood-specific air action plans. It emphasizes resident leadership and participatory budgeting to ensure that community voices shape local air quality solutions. |
| Examples | Transforming Our Communities Require Protecting our Climate Investments | The California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA) showcases how the Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) program empowers environmental justice communities through large-scale, community-led climate investments. The article highlights how resident advisory groups in cities like Fresno, Ontario, Oakland, and Los Angeles have played central roles in shaping neighborhood-level sustainability plans. These groups ensure that funding decisions reflect local priorities, protect against displacement, and promote equitable development. In Southwest Fresno, for example, a resident-led steering committee directed a $70 million grant toward projects in West Fresno, one of the state’s most pollution-burdened areas |
| Examples | Arapahoe County, Colorado Resident Advisory Committee | Arapahoe County launched the Investing in Arapahoe initiative following the voter-approved Measure 1A, which lifted revenue and spending limits. A 10-member Resident Advisory Committee (RAC) was established to ensure transparency and accountability, guiding investment decisions and serving as a liaison between the County and its residents. The webpage provides updates on funding allocations, budget priorities, and community engagement efforts. |
| Templates | Estimating the Total Cost of Partnership | This Excel spreadsheet can assist organizations to estimate the overall cost of a partnership for up to three years. It identifies the resources required to prioritize crucial decisions, consult with stakeholders, advocate for additional funding and maintain focus on the shared objectives. |
| Templates | Value Proposition Tool: Articulating Value within Community- Based and Healthcare Organizations Partnerships | This tool is intended for CBOs and healthcare organizations looking to form a new partnership or seeking clarification on the value of an existing partnership. For those considering a new partnership, this tool can help unite common objectives and determine the overall value of a partnership. |
| Webinars | Power-building for Health Departments Webinar - Part 1 | Part 1 of Human Impact Partners webinar series, Power-Building for Health Departments: Power 101. This webinar is intended for health department leaders, staff, and partners. It focuses on the foundational concepts, introductory frameworks, and strategies for shifting, sharing, and building community power. |
| Webinars | Power-building for Health Departments Webinar - Part 2 | Part 2 of HIP webinar series, Power-Building for Health Departments: Tools for Analyzing and Redistributing Power. This webinar focuses on tools for analyzing and redistributing power. Participants include representatives from Santa Barbara and Riverside Counties in California. |
| Webinars | Advancing Healthcare and CBOs Partnerships to Address Social Determinants: Lessons from the Field | This webinar includes effective strategies for producing and sustaining healthcare and CBO partnerships that address the social determinants of health. |
| Articles | Amplifying Multilingual Voices for Inclusive Public Health Research | This article emphasizes the importance of including limited-English proficient (LEP) populations in public health research to advance health equity. It outlines practical strategies for amplifying multilingual voices, including using professional translators with cultural and subject matter expertise, and employing bilingual moderators for interviews and focus groups to build trust and elicit deeper insights. The piece highlights how culturally attuned research design—especially in survey translation and qualitative data collection—can lead to more accurate, inclusive, and actionable findings in public health research. |
| 2024 CA LHJ Examples | Santa Barbara County: Building Partnerships for Equity | Santa Barbara County Health has numerous partnerships in place that include shared responsibilities, planning and joint service delivery. The department has an agreement with the Santa Barbara County Food Bank to host monthly food distributions at several Health Care Centers across the County. The department also works with other clinics serving patients on Medi-Cal or who are uninsured/underinsured to provide connections to primary and specialty care. County Health staff and providers also engage in various collaboratives in the community to address local health needs including the Pediatric Resiliency Collaborative (PERC) and the Opioid Safety Coalition. |
| 2024 CA LHJ Examples | Sutter County: Collaborating with Community Partners | Sutter County collaborates with community partners and engages with them regularly to support efforts in improving their community (such as throughout CHIP meetings, Oral Health Advisory Committee, Healthy Families Advisory Committee, etc). They also partner with CBOs within their homeless services program and are involved in the Yuba-Sutter Homeless Consortium and related committees. Networks also exist for information sharing with partners and stakeholders. A barrier to continuing to build collaboration and trust is high employee turnover. When an employee leaves the organization, their strong relationship with a community partner often goes with them. |
| Type | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Examples | Health Equity in Erie County | The Erie County Office of Health Equity (ECOHE) conducted a series of focus groups in 2023 to better understand the health and well-being of marginalized and underserved populations across the county. The report highlights community perspectives on the social determinants of health, including economic stability, education, neighborhood conditions, and access to care. In the Best Practices and Lessons Learned section, ECOHE emphasizes the importance of culturally responsive facilitation, building trust through community partnerships, and ensuring language accessibility. These insights are intended to guide future engagement strategies and improve health equity initiatives across Erie County. |
| Examples | Leading Locally: A Community Power-Building Approach to Structural Change | The Leading Locally Report, developed by the USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute and Lead Local, explores how community power-building drives structural change and improves health outcomes. Drawing from 16 place-based case studies across the US, including Santa Ana, CA, the report identifies best practices such as centering local leadership, investing in long-term organizing, and building cross-sector coalitions. Lessons learned emphasize the importance of aligning strategies with local histories and conditions, sustaining governing power beyond policy wins, and resisting top-down agendas that sideline grassroots voices. The report positions community power not just as a means to an end, but as a transformative outcome in itself. |
| Examples | Resilience Hubs in Shasta County | The month of July's Equity Learning Collaborative focused on resilience hubs in Shasta County. Learn from Shasta County’s Public Health Branch on how the resilience hub model can address equity in rural communities by providing essential resources and support, empowering local residents to drive solutions tailored to their unique needs. |
| Templates | Healthcare Coalition Recovery Plan Template | The Health Care Coalition Recovery Plan Template, developed by ASPR TRACIE, is designed to help healthcare coalitions organize comprehensive recovery strategies following emergencies. Rather than simply restoring pre-disaster conditions, the template encourages coalitions to use recovery as an opportunity to enhance community resilience and improve service delivery—making systems more efficient, safe, and cost-effective. It also emphasizes that HCCs may play a more prominent and sustained role during recovery than in response, by convening stakeholders to assess public health impacts, prioritize restoration efforts, support patient care continuity, and navigate competing community needs. These insights underscore the importance of inclusive, forward-looking recovery planning. |
| Webinars | Bridging the Gap: How to Build and Sustain Effective Multidisciplinary Collaboration | "In Part 1 of this two-part training, we will address assessing the needs in your community and identify concrete, foundational supports necessary for effective multidisciplinary and cross-organization/system work. In Part 2, we will share information and evidence-based practices and skills that promote clear and effective communication, diffuse and de-escalate tension, build trust among individuals and disciplines, and result in better outcomes for survivors and communities. We will also learn the three pillars of system change and how teams can use protocol, training, and audits to successfully change the system." |
| Guides | Building Community Capacity to Shape Outcomes of Health Equity Work | From the Rural Health Information Hub, this section emphasizes the importance of building community capacity as a foundation for advancing health equity in rural areas. It outlines strategies for strengthening local leadership, fostering collaboration across sectors, and ensuring that community members—especially those most affected by health disparities—are meaningfully engaged in decision-making. The toolkit highlights how investing in relationships, trust, and shared power can lead to more sustainable, community-driven health solutions. It also provides examples and resources to help rural communities assess their readiness, mobilize assets, and build the infrastructure needed to support long-term equity-focused initiatives. |
| Guides | Local Place-Based Partnerships as a Pathway to Health Equity | This report explores how community-based organizations across the U.S. are leveraging place-based, multi-sector partnerships to advance health equity. Rooted in housing, community development, and economic justice, these partnerships address the social determinants of health—such as neighborhood conditions and systemic inequities—to improve outcomes for children and families. The report highlights how strong backbone organizations, cross-sector collaboration, and community leadership are essential to building local capacity and aligning physical and human capital investments in historically underserved communities. |
| Guides | Community Toolbox: Improving Organizational Management and Development | This toolkit, part of a larger Community Tool Box from the Center for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas, offers a step-by-step guide to help organizations and coalitions plan and manage effective collaborations. It walks users through identifying shared concerns, engaging stakeholders, and forming exploratory task forces. It also provides guidance on creating a governing structure, managing collaborative tasks, and tracking goals and progress. Designed for community-based initiatives, the resource emphasizes inclusive planning, cross-sector engagement, and strategic development to strengthen organizational capacity and impact. |
| Articles | Partnership for Healthy Communities | When it comes to a healthy community, the University of Delaware’s Partnership for Healthy Communities (PHC) understands that place matters. Through the culmination of lived experiences and empirical research, there is a well-established understanding that there are healthy communities and less healthy communities and that this is a result of varying conditions in these communities, conditions referred to as the social determinants of health (SDoH). These varying conditions have been produced and reproduced through political systems, economic and social policies, and social norms, and resulted in persistent health inequities. PHC utilizes this knowledge and evidence to inform the collaborations and investments with communities that have the most to gain in the state of Delaware. Through a description of its four strategic partnerships, we outline how an equity, place-based approach guides our collaborative work to achieve health equity in our state. |
| Articles | Study: Exploring How Health Equity is Addressed in Accountable Communities of/for Health (ACHs) | This study by PHI’s Population Health Innovation Lab (PHIL) examines how Accountable Communities for Health (ACHs) in California and Washington are advancing health equity through multisector collaboration. It identifies five key strategies: providing equity education and training, including diverse community voices in decision-making, changing organizational practices, improving and developing services, and fostering a culture that centers equity. The report highlights the importance of dedicated backbone support, formalized equity commitments, and community partnerships as core features of the ACH model. |
| Articles | A Community-Based Participatory Approach to the Development and Implementation of an HIV Health Behavior Intervention | This study documents the implementation of Project HAPPY, an HIV prevention initiative for African American youth in the Southern U.S., using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) model. The article highlights key lessons learned from the project, including the importance of establishing a continuous feedback loop with community members, conducting regular community inventories to avoid service duplication, and preparing for shifts in partner engagement. Additional insights include consulting with Institutional Review Boards early to prevent delays, offering meaningful incentives to participants, and maintaining multiple points of contact with community partners to manage staff turnover effectively. |
| 2023 CA LHJ Examples | Live Healthy Napa County Language Inclusion Listening Sessions Summary Report | Napa County Health and Human Services Agency-Public Health has added a staff intern classification, strengthening their local Public Health workforce pipeline. Through their Live Healthy Napa County (LHNC) collaborative, they continue to convene partners in action teams to increase Respect and Social Inclusion within Napa County. One of the action teams, the LHNC Language Inclusion action team, has engaged community members to identify gaps in information and resource access. The team created a report of their findings as well as a document of information and resource access points for Spanish-speaking community members in Napa County. |
| 2023 CA LHJ Examples | Marin County Public Health Collaboratives | Marin County Health & Human Services has a long history of developing, nurturing, and evolving community collaboratives to address public health issues & achieve shared goals (Community Collaboratives: Healthy Marin Partnership, Marin HIV/AIDS Care Council, Marin Prevention Network, Marin Perinatal Service Providers Network, Marin Oral Health Steering Committee, Healthy Eating Active Living Collaborative, OD Free Marin, Community Resilience Teams, Community Health Worker Collaborative, Equity and Community Partnerships Committee, Marin County Suicide Prevention Collaborative, and Aging Action Initiative among others). Marin County seeks to provide compensation to community members whose participation may cause financial hardship, while also honoring their expertise and experience. Many collaboratives within HHS are focusing on increasing inclusive participation and amplifying the voices of community members from historically disenfranchised communities. |