Since 1982, the Center for Public-Private Sector Cooperation (CPPSC) has worked with foundations, communities, and non-profit organizations to help them solve complex issues that impact the public, private and non-profit sectors. CPPSC’s specific mission within the Buechner Institute is to enhance the capacity of diverse communities and public, private, and non-profit organizations to solve problems and meet the challenges of change. CPPSC provides relevant and timely research, training, facilitation, organizational development and technical assistance to non-profit and community groups, as well as to governmental organizations especially if part of a collaborative problem solving process.
The activities of CPPSC fall under three main, overlapping domains – Leadership Training and Organizational Development, service (including technical assistance), and research. These activities cut across substantive policy issues of interest to the private, non-profit and public sectors, such as environmental quality, health care, child welfare, affordable housing, and homelessness.
Leadership Training and Organizational Development
Developing leaders to foster more productive cooperation between the private, nonprofit, and public sectors is key to the mission of CPPSC. Ongoing training programs and short-term organizational and/or community workshops are designed and coordinated by the CPPSC. For Example:
The Denver Community Leadership Forum. For over 25 years, the Denver Community Leadership Forum (DCLF) has helped shape the skills our community leaders need to turn challenge into opportunity and conflict into collaboration. DCLF program objectives include:
- Build strong linkages and working relationships among leaders from different sectors in the community—create a "network of responsibility."
- Build a critical mass of leaders with a sense of shared concern and commitment to city, state and nation—a "constituency for the whole" which can make a difference.
- Provide an understanding of new leadership needs and capacities.
Partnerships for Health Initiative Workshops. With funding provided by The Colorado Trust Foundation, CPPSC designs and conducts organizational development workshops for 13 different community organizations throughout Colorado. These trainings range from “Best Practices in Community Collaboration” to “Fundraising and Sustainability Plans” to “The Stages of Organizational Development.”
Service
There is fairly constant demand from non-profit and community groups for services related to strategic planning, facilitation, and conflict management. SPA often receives requests to provide such services as the result of the participation in its training programs (e.g., The Denver Community Leadership Forum and The Rocky Mountain program), as well as by responding to requests for proposals. CPPSC centralizes and coordinates these activities within SPA.
SPA is in an excellent position to offer students--supervised by faculty—the opportunity to work with community groups and nonprofit organizations. The Master in Public Administration (MPA), as well as the Masters in Criminal Justice, requires that students perform a “capstone project,” which often involves working with local organizations. Over 100 such projects are completed every year. We are in the process of making these capstones available online, so they will be of broader use.
Research
An essential activity for CPPSC will be to pursue and conduct policy analysis, research and evaluation on issues relevant to the performance of community groups and non-profit organizations in the region. Much of our analytic work is in support of collaborative problem solving efforts or that cut across agencies, levels of government or cross sectors. Several issues of immediate and pressing concern include analysis and research on vulnerable populations including homelessness, housing of native populations, and the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations engaged in advocacy and building public will.
In developing a research agenda, CPPSC focuses on issues that are not only important for communities in Colorado, but those that resonate with the Rocky Mountain region as a whole. CPPSC also has partnerships with other intellectual resources of the CU system to address community needs.
For more information, contact Lisa Carlson, Lisa.Carlson@ucdenver.edu.