It's not what they're doing, It's what we're doing: Building a Participatory Governance Structure and Culture for the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities and Northwestern University

Efforts to build community-university infrastructure to support community-based participatory research (CBPR) face many of the same barriers as CBPR projects. The mission of the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (ARCC) is to grow equitable and collaborative partnerships between Chicago communities and Northwestern University (NU) for research that leads to measureable improvement in community health. In 2008, ARCC formally established a steering committee (SC) of 11 community- and faith-based organizations, 2 public agencies, and 7 community-engaged NU faculty to reflect the diversity of research partners and their perspectives on needed CBPR infrastructure and support. The SC provides leadership in developing and guiding ARCC to achieve its mission. The SC determines ARCC priorities and strategic direction, participates in budgetary and hiring decisions, and delivers ARCC's message in community and academic settings. ARCC developed and adopted governance policies, held competitive processes to bring on additional members and perspectives, and created leadership and collaborative structures. In 2009, ARCC engaged an external evaluator to conduct a collaborative, formative evaluation of efforts to build capacity of individual SC members to engage in CBPR and the capacity of all SC members to work together to achieve ARCC's mission. Evaluation methods and tools were adapted from the fields of CBPR and anthropology and included participant-observation, surveys, interviews, and one focus group. ARCC SC members will share findings from the evaluation and discuss the iterative process it has used to grow and build partnerships that serve as a cohesive whole with ownership and investment in ARCC and CBPR.