Anchor Institutions

Anchor collaboratives are stronger and can accomplish goals that once seemed out of reach by combining efforts and resources. However, forming an anchor collaboration isn’t automatic; it takes effort and time to get institutions to see their common interests and potential alignment. The article discusses some ways it can work.

The Regional Plan Association, which operates in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut metropolitan region, published recommendations for developing the Anchor Opportunity Network, with an aim to leverage anchor institution assets to drive equitable economic growth. The Network will work to foster relationships between anchors, municipal leaders, and local neighborhoods to better coordinate and accelerate practices such as inclusive, local purchasing.

Laurie Larson writes the article Trusteee Magazine "Anchoring hospitals in the community." In this article, Larson covers the Healthcare Anchor Network, a project of the Democracy Collaborative: 

Theirs is just one example of the work emerging from the Healthcare Anchor Network, a blooming consortium of nearly three dozen health systems launched in May 2017. The network's overarching goal is to “reach a critical mass of U.S. health systems [that are] strategically improving community health and well-being by leveraging all of their institutional assets, including intentionally integrating local economic inclusion strategies in hiring, purchasing and investing.”

HAN is the brainchild of the Democracy Collaborative, an economic development agency in Cleveland, which was launched as a “democratic renewal” research center at the University of Maryland in 2000. The collaborative has since moved well beyond its research roots, offering field activities to expand community wealth-building, hosting nationwide roundtables to discuss transformative economic development solutions, and advising local governments, foundations and anchor institutions such as health systems on new strategies for addressing the root causes of socio-economic inequity in their communities.

Philanthropy News Digest writes about the education work of The Democracy Collaborative and CUMU in "AECF Launches Effort to Help Universities Strengthen Local Communities:" 

A joint project of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) and the Democracy Collaborative, which have been working with the foundation to help "anchor" institutions such as hospitals and universities use their intellectual, social, and financial assets to catalyze economic opportunity in low-income neighborhoods, the Higher Education Anchor Mission Initiative will encourage participating institutions to share insights and lessons learned in areas such as goal setting, data collection, and stakeholder engagement, with the goal of advancing their work as community anchors.