The Prosperity Miami (PM) pilot initiative - a collaboration of Catalyst Miami, New Florida Majority, and South Florida Voices for Working Families - was an effort to build on the philosophy and practices of the groups mentioned above. Working collaboratively across organizations to blend services and community organizing rather than through a singular organization, the partners sought to meet the bottom-line needs of individuals, while also moving them into political organizing for broader social change. This paper highlights the lessons learned from this attempt at social innovation and provides implications for future similar collaborative efforts.

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In an environment where community based organizations are asked to do increasingly more to alleviate the effects of complex social problems, networks and coalitions are becoming the answer for increasing scale, efficiency, coordination, and most importantly, social impact. This paper highlights the formation of a developing coalition around poverty reduction in Miami-Dade County and the role of one organization acting as lead to the initiative. The findings offer a picture of the inter-organizational relationships in the community using social network analysis and identify the organizational capacity factors that contribute to and inhibit the formation of a cohesive and effective coalition in this context. This study was written by the University of Miami and published in the American Journal for Community Psychology.

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