Collaboration has become such a popular word in our field that one wonders at times whether it has lost its meaning and importance. Has collaboration become a cliché? Is it a passing fad? Has it been oversold?

I would have to say, from what I am seeing in Massachusetts and around the country, that the answer is an emphatic no!

When the Community Development Innovation Forum was launched in 2008, we established a collaboration working group that produced a report on different models of collaboration around the Commonwealth. The Forum has promoted collaboration as a critical strategy for increasing impact and gaining efficiencies.

Recently, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has published a terrific new report that highlights examples of new collaborations from around the country – including one from Boston (the Fairmount Collaborative in Boston.)  The paper, The New Way Forward: Using Collaborations and Partnerships for Greater Efficiency and Impact, was written by Dee Walsh and Bob Zdenek, two of our country’s leading practitioners. I highly recommend it to all community developers.

Meanwhile, on a recent trip to South Florida to speak at the Annual Summit of the Florida Association of CDCs, I learned about the Broward Alliance for Neighborhood Development (BAND.)  BAND is a coalition of more than 30 CDCs and nonprofit organizations in Broward County (Ft Lauderdale) who are committed to providing decent, affordable housing in their communities. The mission of BAND is to foster non-profits that create quality housing and strong neighborhoods. The goal of the organization is to increase the capacity of its non-profit members so that the varied housing needs of all residents of Broward County are met. BAND members have pooled resources to hire central staff and to secure NSP dollars for their communities.

Back here in Massachusetts the Catalyst Fund for Nonprofits  has announced its first set of grants to nonprofits that are pursuing innovative collaborations and two of the initial grants are going to MACDC members.  A recent article in the Boston Globe describes grants to Chelsea Neighborhood Developers to develop a Family Economic Center and to Urban Edge and Allston Brighton CDC to pursue a joint asset management strategy.

I think it is clear that collaboration is here to stay in the community development sector.

The first meeting I ever attended on behalf of MACDC – way back in 1993 – was at the Bowdoin Street Community Health Center. The purpose of the meeting was to strategize ways to reduce childhood lead poisoning by building a coalition of community development, housing, environmental and public health advocates to fight for changes in policy and practice that would better protect our children. Over the ensuing years, we successfully won major legislative change, new funding for lead abatement, and a robust effort of abatement, education, prevention and treatment that has nearly eliminated lead poisoning from the Commonwealth (although the risk is still serious in much of our older housing stock.)

The success of that collaborative effort came to mind the other day when I was attending the Health Communities Conference co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Mel King Institute’s Innovation Forum and several other partners. The conference explored the benefits of linking community development to community health efforts as a way to reduce chronic disease and improve wellness. The importance of this effort was underscored by Paul Grogan, President of the Boston Foundation, in his keynote remarks where he highlighted the fact that health care spending is now completely crowding out public investment in virtually every other area – education, recreation, housing, community development, food supports, and public transit. Yet by investing in these other areas we could actually reduce the need for costly medical care and improve the quality of people’s lives. Indeed, providing a homeless family with stable, safe housing might do more to reduce hypertension, asthma, and other chronic illnesses than all the medicine that money can buy.

The Conference included a number of interesting speakers from both the community development and the community health sectors. We heard about cutting edge research that documents that close correlation between socio-economic status and neighborhood quality with health outcomes. We also learned about innovative programs at the ground level that are beginning to make an impact. Materials from the conference are expected to be available soon on the Federal Reserve Bank’s conference web site.

MACDC intends to work with our partners in the public health field to build on the excitement from the conference to explore opportunities for innovation in public policy and community practice. With health care at the top of the priority list in both the State House and Congress, there will be many opportunities to gain traction. Perhaps someday, doctors will have the ability to fight the causes of disease by prescribing rental assistance subsidies, job training and T-passes instead of being limited to simply treating the symptoms of disease with costly medical procedures and pharmaceuticals

I recently read an book review by Anthony Lewis about a new biography of Justice William Brennan (Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion  by Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel .) For those who don’t know, Brennan was a Supreme Court Justice from 1956 to 1990 and was one of the leading progressives who helped shape Constitutional Law throughout that period. He was known as a liberal who could actually get the votes for a majority opinion – not just write powerful dissents. Anthony Lewis explains how Brennan was able to get his colleagues to vote for his opinions.  Lewis’ summary nicely articulates what I believe is the secret formula for effective advocacy:

Brennan’s success “came from intellect, conviction, a strong tactical sense, an eye for the essentials rather than a wish list, and a relationship of good faith and confidence with his colleagues.” 

In my 25 years of advocacy work, I have seen the importance of these qualities time and time again, although I have never seen this formula so neatly summarized.  Anthony Lewis has provided MACDC, and all of us who engage in advocacy, a succinct and helpful guide for our ongoing efforts.