community initiatives



Building the Capacity of California’s Safety Net: Lessons From the Strengthening Community Dental Practices Demonstration

FavoriteThe authors describe the results of a demonstration project funded by the California HealthCare Foundation and the California Pipeline Program. They assessed the effectiveness of practice-management consulting in helping California’s safety-net dental practices survive and thrive. The evaluation showed that most clinics made measurable improvements. Their experiences point to several factors that create an environment for success. A second phase of the project is being implemented that builds on lessons learned from the demonstration.





Developing a Master Data Sharing Agreement: Seeking Student-Level Evidence to Support a Collaborative Community Effort in Education

FavoriteThis article discusses how a private foundation, a public school system, and a state university joined forces to address a difficult, long-standing challenge: closing the academic achievement gap between urban and suburban students. The parties worked through multiple challenges and forged a Master Data Sharing Agreement (MDSA) that will facilitate both daily intelligence for program staff and powerful post-hoc research capacity. This MDSA text has been released online under a Creative Commons license (Community Research Institute, 2011a).





The Pros and Cons of Comprehensive Community Initiatives at the City Level: The Case of the Urban Health Initiative

FavoriteThis paper analyzes the impact of choosing a citywide focus over a neighborhood one, beginning with RWJF’s rationale for choosing to intervene at the city level. It examines how that focus influenced the planning process for the initiative in the UHI cities. The study demonstrates that the decision to intervene at the city level provided increased opportunity to build political power and create meaningful changes in public and private systems.





The Colorado Trust’s Healthy Communities Initiative: Results and Lessons for Comprehensive Community Initiatives

FavoriteThe Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative (CHCI) was a comprehensive community initiative designed and funded by The Colorado Trust as a means of empowering citizens to make their communities healthier. This paper describes: the background and development of the initiative, including the general principles that underlay the CHCI model; the degree to which the planning process was carried out according to the model within the various sites; and the initiative’s key outcomes, especially with regard to civic engagement, new health-promotion programs, and new infrastructure for community problem-solving.