Building Collaborative Capacity in Community Coalitions: A Review and Integrative Framework

This article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of 80 articles, chapters, and practitioners' guides focused on collaboration and coalition functioning. The purpose of this review was to develop an integrative framework that captures the core competencies and processes needed within collaborative bodies to facilitate their success. The resulting framework for building collaborative capacity is presented. Four critical levels of collaborative capacity—member capacity, relational capacity, organizational capacity, and programmatic capacity—are described and strategies for building each type are provided. The implications of this model for practitioners and scholars are discussed.     

“Changing the Text”: Modeling Council Capacity to Produce Institutionalized Change

Collaboration is a ubiquitous approach to change, but is notoriously difficult and not definitively linked to desirable outcomes. Not surprisingly, the collaboration literature is replete with numerous facilitators and barriers to collaborative efforts. The current study aimed to develop a parsimonious model of factors influencing the success of collaborative efforts both internal and external to the council, including, (a) features of the council environment, (b) intermediate outcomes including the empowerment of members in the council context and the degree to which councils have generated social capital and (c) the extent to which collaborative efforts are occurring in a community context supportive of their aims. In particular, this study examines whether these factors affect the extent to which councils are positioned to achieve institutionalized change, or changes "in the text" that govern front line providers' (e.g., police, advocates) practices in the community response to intimate partner violence. Results suggest that perceived member empowerment, generation of social capital, and supportive community context are the most important predictors of the extent to which councils foster shifts in institutionalized change. Features of the council environment are only indirectly related to the degree to which institutionalized change is ultimately fostered as mediated by the generation of social capital. This suggests that the ability of members to act as change agents and the extent to which those in power support council efforts figure more prominently to facilitate or constrain council efforts than council functioning itself.     

Councils as Empowering Contexts: Mobilizing the Front Line to Foster Systems Change in the Response to Intimate Partner Violence

Collaborative approaches to change are common, and though evidence for their effectiveness is equivocal, there is growing support that councils facilitate desired changes in the systems response to intimate partner violence. Questions remain regarding the specific mechanisms by which this change is facilitated, and recent work has focused on examining the intermediate processes through which councils may produce more distal change. One such mechanism relates to the potential of councils to be empowering contexts for their membership, often comprised of front-line providers and responders. The present study examines what factors are positively related to perceived individual empowerment as an outcome for members, and importantly, considers not only perceived council context, but also the perceived organizational contexts in which each council member is employed. Study findings suggest that both contexts-council and organizational-are important when considering the degree to which members are empowered. Specifically, member participation, council leadership, and supportive council and organizational climates are significantly positively related to the degree to which councils function as empowering contexts. However, the effect of belonging to a council with a supportive climate, characterized in particular by shared power in decision-making, is stronger when members are from high organizational support settings versus low support settings.     

Proximal Outcomes Matter: A Multilevel Examination of the Processes by Which Coordinating Councils Produce Change

Communities are engaged in efforts to create a coordinated response to intimate partner violence. Though coordinating councils are commonly employed vehicles for such efforts, research provides only equivocal support regarding their effectiveness. These mixed findings may reflect methodological and conceptual challenges. Specifically, there is an over-reliance on conceptualizing council effectiveness in terms of distal outcomes (e.g., behavior change), rather than the intermediary processes by which councils affect change. A direct assessment of councils' proximal outcomes may highlight change mechanisms. To that end, this study investigates the extent to which councils impact proximal outcomes and examines the processes through which proximal outcomes are interrelated and linked to distal community change. Study findings suggest that perceived proximal outcomes do significantly predict variability in perceived distal community change across councils. Specifically, promotion of social capital and institutionalized change predict achievement of distal community change, and promotion of social capital also predicts achievement of institutionalized change.     

A Qualitative Study of the Activities and Outcomes of Domestic Violence Coordinating Councils

Efforts to promote systems change frequently involve the creation of councils, coalitions, and other collaborative settings. However, research, to date, reports limited empirical evidence that they achieve desired outcomes (Roussos and Fawcett, Annu Rev Public Health 21:369–402, 2000). The precise nature of this evidence base has received less attention. In particular, formal investigations into council effectiveness (a) rarely highlight the specific nature of collaborative efforts; (b) emphasize fairly distal markers as the “gold standard” for effectiveness; (c) focus largely on formative “outcomes” (e.g., action plan quality); and (d) utilize primarily quantitative research approaches. The current study extends previous research by employing a qualitative approach to investigate the particular activities and proximal outcomes of 41 domestic violence coordinating councils. Study findings suggest that councils engage in six primary activities: discussing issues, sharing information, identifying weaknesses in the system’s response, providing training for key stakeholders, engaging in public/community education, and lobbying key stakeholders who are not council members. Three proximal outcomes were consistently identified in council efforts: the promotion of knowledge, relationships, and institutionalized change. Attending more directly to proximal outcomes and concrete activities in our research has important implications for conceptualizing and researching the effectiveness of councils and collaborative settings.     

Facilitating Interorganizational Collaboration: The Contributions of Interorganizational Alliances

In an attempt to promote service delivery integration and improve interorganizational collaboration, many recent human service delivery initiatives have included the development of interorganizational alliances such as coalitions and coordinating councils. Despite their popularity, little is known about how these alliances influence interorganizational collaboration, specifically the extent to which they alter the interactions among human service delivery organizations. The present study examined the interorganizational interactions, specifically the exchange relationships, within one county that was implementing two interorganizational alliances—a countywide coordinating council and interagency service delivery teams. Membership on both alliances was associated with broader interorganizational exchange networks. Organizations involved in a coordinating council were more likely to be included in client, information, and resource exchanges, and participate in joint ventures with a broader range of organizations. Providers involved in interagency teams also exchanged clients and information with a broader sector of service delivery organizations than nonparticipating providers. Observational data suggested that both alliances created structures and processes intended to facilitate interorganizational exchanges. Together, these results suggest that the development of opportunities for and encouragement of staff and leader involvement in these types of alliances may be an important part of our attempt to create a more integrated social service delivery system. The implications of these findings for researchers and practitioners are discussed.