Building Research Capacity for Community Organizations: Strategies from the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities

Ben Rucker MPH,1,2 Sherida Morrison MA,1,3 Kevin Rak MA,1,4 Aisha Davis MSW,1,5 Monique Reed PhD, 1,6 Gina Curry,1 Jen Brown MPH,1

1Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities, Center for Community Health, Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, 2Chinese Mutual Aid Association, 3Demoiselle 2 Femme, 4Hope Response Coalition, 5Proactive Services 6Westside Health Authority

• Conducting and reflecting on internal assessments can help CBOs consider their research purpose and how to create an organizational research agenda or set of priorities. Understanding how research contributes to the organization’s mission is key to countering perceptions that research is an ‘add-on’.

• Conducting small seed or pilot research projects may provide a hands on ‘learn by doing’ experience. Participating as a reviewer in the seed grant program also built grant writing and project design skills.

• Creating opportunities for CBOs to move from students to teachers and mentor other CBOs strengthened knowledge and bi-directional learning.

• It’s important to consider how to build organizational capacity beyond individual staff members because of staff turnover.

• CBOs built leadership capacity as they became more engaged in advocating for support and change within academic institutions and leadership.

Workshop topics include CBPR 101, lessons from longstanding partnerships, navigating university and funder systems, collaborative data analysis. Total: 47 workshops held.

One-on-one technical assistance with partnership/project development and proposal preparation. 12 ARCC seed grants resulted from connections brokered by ARCC.

Seed grants- Hands on learning opportunities to collect pilot data and prepare for larger research projects. Funded 6 rounds: 71 applications, 30 grants funded, approx. $590K- 13 partnership building, 17 CBPR implementation.

Intensive capacity building programs have focused on organizational assessment and capacity building (developing/implementing action plans), preparing federal grant proposals, development of organizational research purpose/priorities. 22 CBOs participated.

Online Resource Directory- www.ARCCresources.net- online website with materials, tools, and templates related to CEnR. Resources include E.g., template Memorandum of Understanding, examples of CBO Research Principles and Values document, guidance for collaborative research dissemination, partnership evaluation tools.

Discussion

Acknowledgement: This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Award UL1RR025741, & Northwestern University. Acknowledgement: This work is supported by the National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Award UL1RR025741, & Northwestern University.

ARCC Online Resource Directory created in 2013 to house tools and templates created and gathered by ARCC CBO partners.

Partnership (rules of engagement,

connections)

Access to funding/fiscal capacity

Navigation of university/

funder systems

Mechanisms for dissemination

Technological capacity

Identifiedresearch priorities/

agenda

Value on research participation/use

CBPR/research knowledge & skills

Individuals w/capacity

OrganizationalCapacity

Figure 1

Figure 2

Background

ARCC Community Capacity Building Strategies

Next Steps

• ARCC seeks to support and continue to build a growing network of CBOs and FBOs that are interested or involved in research that can serve as resources for each other and research collaborators.

• As demand increases, ARCC is developing and adapting mechanisms for building capacity for CBOs participating in other types of engaged research including patient centered outcomes research and clinical research.