Game Changer: Cross-Sector Collaboration
Our Class of 2026 March Leader Day began with a deep dive into what’s happening in our public, corporate and nonprofit sectors. We broke into cross-sector groups to discuss what similarities our class members were seeing and how they might support each other. This was a great opportunity for all of us to hear about both unique and similar challenges our sectors face, and begin to think about how working together might help us address some of those challenges.
I was recently introduced to the book The Intersector: How the Public, Nonprofit, and Private Sectors Can Address America's Challenges. Editors Daniel Gitterman and Neil Britto bring together a collection of articles on the critical importance of cross-sector collaboration to address the issues our country faced to navigate an unprecedented health crisis, and then begin to rebuild our communities and organizations. While the research came out of the pandemic, the findings not only apply, but are even more critical given the crises our country faces today.
Gitternam and Britto state in their introduction: “…perhaps more than ever before, addressing our interdependent problems requires collaboration across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. While each sector has its limitations, it also has unique assets, capabilities, relationships, and mandates. If the sectors collaborate toward a common purpose, they can accomplish far more than each one can alone. In sum, there is a need for an “intersector,” where the public, nonprofit, and private sectors share expertise, resources, and authority to address our most difficult challenges. As a tool of public action, cross-sector collaboration is an instrument through which collective action is structured to address public problems.” (Gitterman, 2021, p. 2)
Jennifer Karls, Roots of Inclusion, LE’14.
In addition to the ongoing problems of our community, we find ourselves in an environment with similarities to the pandemic. Devastating changes are creating huge deficit budgets, no sector is immune to the impact, and each sector is impacted differently. The idea of bringing together leaders across sectors to share their perspectives and to collaborate on how to support each other as we navigate this new unknown may be the only solution.
Last Tuesday, was a joy to see so many Leadership Eastside grads, students and board members at the Eastside Pathways All Partner Meeting. Eastside Pathways is leading the way with collective action, and they are proving how cross-sector collaboration moves the needle to improve systems focused on education and children from cradle-to-career. All the cross-sector partners in the room are dedicated to Eastside Pathway’s mission of empowering community leaders to improve systems intergenerationally. Eastside Pathway’s work could be a case study in the next edition of The Intersector.
No one industry, organization or individual can solve homelessness, equity and belonging, the mental health crisis, or any of the other major challenges that we face. However, the evidence shows that when sectors come together to bring their individual strengths, results are achieved.
This is the magic of Leadership Eastside and it’s something we’ve known all along. We do better when we work together and get creative. Leadership Eastside is currently exploring ways we can gather to explore ideas. Stay tuned!
From the desk of Jeni Craswell
Some of the many Leadership Eastside alumni at the Eastside Pathways All Partner Meeting. Photos courtesy of Eastside Pathways.
