The purpose of the Center’s Collaborative Capacity Building Initiative is to help individuals and organizations better understand, initiate, participate in and lead collaborative public policy efforts. The Initiative receives support from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust.
Building collaborative capacity plays a vital role in fulfilling the Center’s mission and vision to build the knowledge, skills, and relationships for collaborative governance in Washington state and the Pacific Northwest.
The Collaborative Capacity Building Initiative unites many of the Center’s services and consists of the following efforts:
Creating Awareness
The Center builds awareness of the value and possibilities of collaboration by hosting forums on important public policy issues.
Building and Disseminating Knowledge
The Center serves as a conduit between the universities and real-world challenges by documenting and fostering best practices and lessons learned. Center faculty and staff present at conferences, workshops, forums and academic events. This work helps ensure that policy making in the state and region is informed by the latest thinking and scholarly achievement.
Developing Collaboration Skills
The Center provides training that allows participants from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to better lead and engage in collaborative processes.
Providing Applied Learning Opportunities
The Center’s Internship Program provides students interested in collaborative public policy and multi-party dispute resolution with paid opportunities to work with professionals and mentors on projects and develop the skills needed to be successful in the field.
Expanding Issue Sectors
Having built a strong reputation for building consensus among diverse constituencies on natural resource challenges, the Center has begun diversifying the suite of issues on which it works to include health policy, higher education, criminal justice, and government accountability. The Center has identified the need for proactive collaborative leadership in other emerging challenges such as resilience to climate impacts, disaster preparedness, regional transportation, and water policy.