Using a Participatory Approach to Provide Assistance to Community-Based Organizations: The Seattle Partners Community Research Center

The operation of the Seattle Partners CRC is described and examples of how it has worked collaboratively with CBOs in providing technical assistance are given, to examine the benefits and challenges of collaboration and the trade-off between capacity building and providing direct technical assistance in promoting long-term CBO viability.

Abstract

Community-based organizations (CBOs), including grassroots, voluntary organizations, are an important part of any strategy for addressing social determinants of health. Because of the challenges faced by CBOs, "enabling systems" may be neededto help them survive and fulfill theirmissions, andresearchers have a variety of skills that allow them to play a role in such systems. The potential for researchers to play a role in supporting CBOs led the Seattle Urban Research Center (known as Seattle Partners) to establish a community research center (CRC) as one of its core projects. This article describes the operation of the Seattle Partners CRC and gives examples of how it has worked collaboratively with CBOs in providing technical assistance. The Discussion section draws from the CRC experience to examine the benefits and challenges of collaboration and the trade-off between capacity building and providing direct technical assistance in promoting long-term CBO viability.