In 2005 Building Partnerships was formed by two successful organizations: the Los Angeles-based Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, or SCOPE and Working Partnerships USA in San Jose. Both groups combine coalition building, innovative policy research and political action with compelling results:

• In San Jose, Working Partnerships' success stems from its ability to bring community activists together with organized labor. Through a series of leadership training institutes, Working Partnerships forged an alliance of more than 500 activists who are a counter-balance to corporate excesses and have helped in the transformation of local government into a public sector benefiting all classes and constituencies in Silicon Valley. The upshot has been a series of victories ranging from health care for all children to new policies coupling development projects with creating new career opportunities and affordable housing. In the process, this work has generated new understanding and participation in the political process that made it possible for a progressive majority on the San Jose City Council & in other Santa Clara County communities.
   
• In Los Angeles, SCOPE has worked to reverse the trend of declining civic participation among the regions low income and largely people of color communities. Through its Los Angeles Metropolitan Alliance SCOPE has built an effective, new coalition bringing activists from inner city neighborhoods such as South Central Los Angeles and East L.A. together with their counterparts in working class communities such the San Fernando Valley. By analyzing regional trends and promoting common responses SCOPE is helping to bridge divisions to win new economic opportunities and a healthier urban environment. In 2005, SCOPE supporters played a major role in defining issues & mobilizing under-represented communities to exercise their voting rights resulting in the election of Los Angeles' progressive new mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa.

With initial funding from the McKay Foundation, New World Foundation, Solidago Foundation, and the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, the two groups conceived Building Partnerships -- not as another national organization -- but as a peer-to-peer technical assistance and leadership development network: an alliance to help activists in other cities create successful coalitions of their own.

And it's working.

In the first year, Building Partnerships expanded beyond California to include organizations in three other cities: Massachusetts Community Labor United in Boston, the Front Range Economic Strategy Center in Denver, and Georgia STAND UP in Atlanta.

In our second year, we partnered with the Connecticut Center for a New Economy in New Haven and Good Jobs, Livable Neighborhoods in Milwaukee. CCNE's Civic Leadership Institute for Connecticut launched in the Spring of 2007, while Good Jobs, Livable Neighborhoods aims to conduct the inaugural CLI in the Fall.

We have since then partnered with Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development and Puget Sound Sage to launch CLI programs. We have worked with CCNE on framing research and community blueprinting. We have collaborated with Working Partnerships USA to pilot three new training programs, Values-Based Leadership, Leading a New Way and the Boards and Commissions Service Training. And we are collaborating with the Detroit Collaborative Design Center at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture and others on a team project for the Ford Foundation to study the civic engagement landscape in the Detroit metropolitan region.