Overview
Anchor institutions are nonprofit or public place-based entities such as universities and hospitals that are rooted in their local community by mission, invested capital, or relationships to customers, employees, residents and vendors. Anchor institutions therefore have an ability to engage in long term-planning in a manner that aligns their institutional interests with those of their local communities. Thus they have both ability and motivation to play a key role in improving the long-term well-being of the communities they serve by better aligning their institutional resources - like hiring, purchasing, investment, and volunteer base, with the needs of those communities.
An increasing number of anchor institutions have joined together to form anchor collaboratives. Anchor collaboratives can take many forms, but generally consist of a network of anchor institutions based in the community that join together to support initiatives that advance equitable and inclusive economic development strategies and provide a platform for managing area-wide anchor collaborative initiatives. Through collaboratives, anchors are able to share best practices, collaborate, an plan interventions that accelerate community growth.
The challenges our cities face today are daunting, but when a community’s leading anchor institutions commit to working together collaboratively, the solutions we need are in reach. By intentionally aligning their collective resources for stronger, more inclusive local economies and healthier local communities, anchor collaboratives have the power to make real change happen— if they can work together to effectively set and advance goals.
An increasing number of anchor institutions have joined together to form anchor collaboratives. Anchor collaboratives can take many forms, but generally consist of a network of anchor institutions based in the community that join together to support initiatives that advance equitable and inclusive economic development strategies and provide a platform for managing area-wide anchor collaborative initiatives. Through collaboratives, anchors are able to share best practices, collaborate, an plan interventions that accelerate community growth.
The challenges our cities face today are daunting, but when a community’s leading anchor institutions commit to working together collaboratively, the solutions we need are in reach. By intentionally aligning their collective resources for stronger, more inclusive local economies and healthier local communities, anchor collaboratives have the power to make real change happen— if they can work together to effectively set and advance goals.
Core Activities of Network
The Anchor Collaborative Network convenes place-based collaboratives in order to share emerging practices for advancing an anchor mission approach within their communities, address common challenges, co-develop new tools, and identify areas where collaborative efforts may be possible.
The network will be focused around:
The network will be focused around:
- Creating toolkits and case studies to tell the story of successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the field;
- Building an information hub as a repository for impactful resources;
- Producing webinars that elevate the emerging practices in the field and create a space to process and learn from shared challenges
- Collaborating to connect, learn, align and make innovative place-based solutions