Comprehensive Support

Cross-sector partnerships encounter countless challenges.  Leaders and practitioners must contend with running collaborative processes, designing high-impact strategies, developing sustainable business models, communicating about their work, effective use of data, raising public and private funds, and much more.  These busy change makers need support.

CivicLab, through Talent Hubs and the National Talent Network, provides comprehensive support to its partners.  Through a unique, just-in-time, contextualized partnership model, CivicLab customizes support methods to the partnership, place, and challenge.

Our approach is simple – if you need support, we are here.  If we are not the best option to provide you with the support you need, we will connect you with one of our many technical assistance providers who can.

Our Support

Our comprehensive support is responsive to the stakeholder’s needs.  We use a blend of ongoing learning opportunities, deep consultations, long-term engagements, trainings, and other methods are used to deliver the right support, at the right time, contextualized to the right place and people.

Communities of Practice

Talent Hubs and members of the National Talent Network meet routinely in communities of practice to share ideas, resources,  and lessons.  These communities of practice take many forms, ranging from ongoing monthly meetings with rotating topics to deep dives on specific strategies, challenges, or opportunities.  Leaders and practitioners tell us they learn the most from other colleagues who are just a few steps ahead of them – this living network connecting change makers is fueled through our communities of practice.

Capacity Building

CivicLab teaches the practices of stakeholder engagement, system building, and collaboration to partnerships focused on complex social challenges.  Through our many Labs, we provide cross-sector partnerships and organizations with the tools and frameworks they need to be successful.  Our capacity-building support is designed specifically for each stakeholder, adjusting the content, tools, timeline, and delivery to meet the group where they are.  Check out some of our most common system-building tools on our Learning page.

Subject Matter Expertise

CivicLab partners with national initiatives to provide community integration, systems-thinking, systems-building, initiative design, and cross-sector collaboration subject matter expertise.

Technical Assistance Provider Network

CivicLab partners with dozens of institutes, organizations, consultants, and practitioners to provide specific technical assistance to its partners.  Ranging from national organizations like the Institute for Higher Education Policy and the National Equity Project to current practitioners and leaders with deep context expertise, we make our technical assistance network work for partnerships.

Capacity Extension

Sometimes partnerships and organizations need more than training and tools to accomplish their work.  Rather than hiring consultants that do little to build the capacity of partnerships, CivicLab provides capacity extension support for organizations leading large-scale collaborative work.  Bringing ourselves as practitioners to partnerships, combined with our large network of experts and leaders, we supplement collaborative teams with an intentional plan of building capacity and reducing the need for extension services over time.