Collaboratory for Community Support-About Us

About Us

Guiding Principles
Emphasis and Core Beliefs
Focus on a Systems Approach to Community Improvement
Our Motivation
Biographies

Who We Are
The Collaboratory for Community Support was established in 1998 with a grant from the Power Foundation to explore how communities could be supported in their efforts to re-organize their work and services in order to respond to devolution and solve social problems.

Mission
The mission of The Collaboratory is to enable communities to develop systemic solutions to social and economic problems by accessing support from local and national sources and effectively working across organizations and sectors.

The term “collaboratory” is taken from the fields of science and technology and refers to a learning community that uses resources and information to facilitate effective collaboration among diverse (and often geographically separate) participants. The Collaboratory for Community Support seeks to apply the methods of a national collaboratory to the challenges of community improvement.

What We're Doing
For the first years of our existence, The Collaboratory has essentially operated as a research and development organization. Using interviews, site visits, Web and literature reviews, publications, presentations, and consulting projects, we have come to understand present needs and assets in local communities, various approaches communities are taking to reform their systems and improve their neighborhoods, and national resources and services available to help communities. From this learning, we have also identified essential mechanisms that enable communities to re-organize their work for systemic solutions.