Collaboration Multiplier: Maximizing community efforts through multi-field partnership

Partnerships are powerful tools for mobilizing communities to action, bringing community issues to the forefront of multiple agendas, and tackling issues that are difficult for one entity to achieve alone. Increasingly, public health organizations recognize the need to partner with others outside their own field—community leaders, transportation and land use planners, parks and recreation, schools, economic development agencies, and others—in order to achieve health goals. And yet, this new way of partnering can be challenging. Engaging a broad set of partners with varying knowledge and skills requires strategic thinking and effective collaboration in order to advance policy and environmental changes that meet community needs and priorities. As more organizations are required to collaborate with unfamiliar entities, there is a need for a strong foundation of understanding among the partners, including elements such as partner intentions and contributions, perspectives on the issue, communication styles, professional cultures, and varying interests, values, and missions. Informed by years of experience working with diverse partners on prevention initiatives, Prevention Institute developed the Collaboration Multiplier tool, a step-by-step process for community stakeholders and practitioners to learn more about each other and identify ways of working together. This presentation will share the lessons learned from various community efforts utilizing multi-field collaboration, including a pilot project to address the intersection of violence and healthy eating and activity. Moreover, participants will learn how to utilize Collaboration Multiplier to delineate potential roles and identify opportunities for diverse partners to work towards the goal of achieving healthier communities.