Friday, January 20, 2006

Collaborative Regional Initiatives: Civic Entrepreneurs Work to Fill the Governance Gap

From 1997 to 2004, The James Irvine Foundation (Irvine) invested more than $20 million in grants to support Collaborative Regional Initiatives (CRIs), partnerships that engaged Californians from public, private, and nonprofit sectors in most of the state’s major regions. These CRIs all emerged from collaborative processes involving diverse stakeholders. They varied in their origins, focus, and outcomes —- each emerged from its region’s unique challenges, and each addressed these in different ways. Across the group, they dealt with at least three of four major types of issues: (1) natural resource protection, (2) workforce and economic development, (3) regional infrastructure development, and (4) civic engagement.

The overarching goals of Irvine’s CRI program were to enhance economic vitality, increase social equity, and protect the natural environment of California regions over the long term through strategic, collaborative action by business, community, and government leadership. The effort was part of Irvine’s Sustainable Communities program, the purpose of which was to help California accommodate growth in a way that benefited the economy, the environment, and all levels of its diverse population. In 2003, Irvine restructured its strategic approach to grantmaking and no longer has a separate Sustainable Communities program. However, some of its goals are now a part of Irvine’s California Perspectives program, which seeks to inform public understanding, engage Californians, and improve decision-making on significant issues of long-term consequence to the state. Source: Institute of Urban & Regional Development. U.C. Berkeley IURD Working Paper Series. Paper WP-2006-04

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