A community-wide population health intervention’s success can hinge on the strength of the multi-sector partnership and its structure. A trusted convening organization, providing a forum for collaboration between diverse community partners from social services, health care and public health sectors, can be a catalyst, helping to identify and align interests as well as fostering investment in community-wide population health. A trusted convener, agreed upon by community partners to serve as an organizing entity, can foster relationship-building and facilitate the management of interventions. If structured appropriately, it can serve to ensure equitable and productive participation among multi-sector partners. However, inequitable power dynamics, distrust, and misaligned interests, in addition to structural issues related to developing a multi-sector partnership and establishing a governance structure, can all contribute to ultimately unsuccessful collaborations.

Understanding the framework of a trusted environment requires determining both the form of a trusted convener (i.e., who is the convener and how does it operate) and its functions (i.e., what the convener does).

The form of the convener refers to how the organization is developed, selected, and/or constructed:

  • Who is the convener?
  • How is the convener selected?
  • How are community partners identified?
  • What will be the central role of the convener?  
  • What is the management structure?
  • What decision-making approach will be adopted?
  • How much time is usual and customary for establishing the governance structure?
  • How can a community identify and/or build the “right” convener and governance structure akin to their environment and partnerships?

The functions of the convener relates to what the organization might do including:

  • Collecting and analyzing data to understand community needs and track progress.
  • Developing goals across collaborative partners.
  • Developing metrics for accountability/and evaluation.
  • Being a financial manager of resources used for community-level interventions.

To start, the community must consider its own landscape and health care marketplace. Successful convening organizations should factor in their relationships and histories of collaboration, focusing on their unique attributes and strengths. For example, depending on the community, power dynamics can be viewed as a positive or negative influence in an intervention’s success. In one community, a partner that may have greater financial investment and influence may impede a collaboration’s overall progress because other community partners feel their voices, needs, and possible financial savings are limited. Yet, in another community, a dominant partner with more investment capital and powerful community relationships, may bring a strong voice, and achieve “buy-in” from other sectors thereby resulting in a cohesive, focused partnership. By having or building a trusted convener that is uniquely adapted to the community, it will be positioned as a more effective facilitator. Depending on its existing relationships and capacity, the convener may serve different functions, ranging from collaborator to central data warehouse administrator to financial manager of an intervention’s investment capital and outcomes savings.

Additionally, it is critical for a convener to have the trust of the partners and lend equal voice to all community representatives. By cultivating multi-sector relationships, a trusted convener can help identify shared goals that, through a successful partnership, can pave the road for a more strategic and intentional alignment of services in the future. If the trusted convener also serves the role of financial manager, they can provide accountability and transparency by monitoring the flow of investment funds and savings allocations, which can offer reassurance to all partners.  A convener thus must be inclusive of all community players at the table to ensure full representation of the community.

Other Organizations Exploring this Element

The trusted environment foundational element was identified and informed by a multitude of interviews with key informants, thought leaders, health systems, and other community organizations immersed in these discussions. We recognize many other organizations and initiatives are exploring the multitude of issues related to developing and supporting a trusted environment within a community.

  • Democracy Collaborative
  • America’s Essential Hospitals
  • County Health Rankings
  • Build Health Challenge
  • Invest Health
  • State Health Value Strategies
  • Moving Health Care Upstream
  • Rethink (Venture Project)
  • Trust for America’s Health
  • Building for Health

Resources