Cities, Counties and Schools Work Together to Stretch Community Dollars

摘要

Local governments are harnessing the power of partnerships to effectively and efficiently deliver services to their communities and leverage existing human and financial resources. Collaborative efforts help cities address complex community health and safety challenges that are typically beyond the capacity of a single jurisdiction. Partnerships help distribute the associated risks and costs, reducing the impact on each individual participant. Ultimately partnerships increase results and benefit the community. Through a Kaiser Permanente community benefit grant, the Institute for Local Government (ILG) has updated the Stretching Community Dollars Guidebook. This online resource provides city officials a framework for developing and implementing partnerships in their communities. The guide provides exercises designed to help local officials establish goals and objectives for a partnership, identify stakeholders to be included, determine communication needs and evaluate the partnership's success. In addition to updating the resource, ILG seeks to work directly with selected communities statewide to build partnerships addressing health and safety.