History
The Community Collaboratives were established in 1993 after a comprehensive needs assessment identified and prioritized the most pressing concerns for residents and outlined various strategies for addressing the needs. The most pressing concerns at that time included a lack of affordable medical care as well as insufficient legal aid, low wages, drug and alcohol abuse, and environmental pollution. They also recommended various strategies for addressing these needs. One recommendation was to develop a task force of community organizations to set priorities for the community and to coordinate local resources to meet these needs.
In 1993, the Community Task Force was established to serve that role, creating 11 community collaboratives. In 1998, the Community Task Force and Ozarks Fighting Back teamed up to create what is now the Community Partnership of the Ozarks.
Today, the collaborative initiative includes six issue based collaboratives and seventeen subcommittees that include nearly 500 participating individuals from organizations, agencies, business and neighborhoods. These groups seem to know no bounds as they let down the barriers of territory and put creativity and community conscience forward to develop partnerships and practices to meet the needs in education, environment, healthy, housing, homelessness, transportation, and for the seniors in our community.
Membership of the community collaboratives grows each year as representatives from area governments, educational institutions, volunteers and the public and private sector seek involvement in one of the more than 20 active groups. 2006 marked an unprecedented year in the level of involvement in the Community Collaborative initiative. Membership within the collaboratives has grown to nearly 500 who gave over 2,600 hours of service over the last calendar year. Because of this dedication and phenomenal leadership, the collaboratives have far exceeded their goals time and again by bringing over a million dollars to Springfield and, even more importantly, immeasurable advances in solutions to community issues.