Under the leadership of the Cardea Center for Women, the Consortium for Collaborative Solutions was organized early in 2010 as a capacity building consortium of nonprofit organizations with the vision of a vibrant civil society in which nonprofits can flourish by fostering mutual assistance and support amongst each other as theywork to help people improve their lives.
PURPOSE: The common purpose was to pool their resources to secure joint tenancy and explore the possibility of collaborative work.
The firm belief was that by joining forces to create a physical incubator whereby their individual space needs could be met while collaborating in the back-office functions would result in financial saving to all. Working together in close proximity could help them further their individual missions and leverage the resources of member organizations for the greater benefit of clients and community.
GOALS: These agencies have come together with synergistic goals in a unique undertaking in order to achieve common goals.
Increase efficiency and multiply the consortium’s impact by sharing expertise and contacts and providing services to larger numbers of people.
A ccess various agency specialty resources and other complementary services across agency lines;
Promote collaborative endeavors such as advocacy, capacity building and support services to maximize each organization's efforts.
Offer coordination of services (less overlap, duplication, fragmentation).
Strengthen each organizations' effectiveness, spread best practices, expand organization’s reach and influence –– and to do all of this more cost-effectively.
Enhance the accessibility and flow of services for their clients, e specially underserved, disadvantaged and low-income populations of women, immigrants, and refugees.
The following nonprofit organizations are the current members of the Consortium:
The African Community Health Institute provides linguistically and culturally sensitive health services to empower individuals to adjust to their social environment by learning new coping mechanisms which enhance their self identity.
The Cardea Center for Women promotes women's well-being, advancement and equal access to opportunities across the Silicon Valley region through a dedicated ‘HUB”, focusing on the inter-related issues around women’s personal, professional, political and civic aspirations.
FACTR provides unique, culturally and linguistically specific, mental health and psycho-education services to Bay Area refugee and immigrant families and clinical training for professionals who serve them.
Refugee Transitions assists refugee and immigrant families in becoming self-sufficient in the United States by providing services to help them attain the English language, life, job and academic skills they need to succeed in their new communities.
Upwardly Global helps highly skilled immigrants, refugees and asylees reclaim their careers here in the United States and educates and engages American employers in immigrant inclusion in the workplace.
The HeartWorks Family Center’s The Sabatino Memorial Family Resource Center offers children experiences that are appropriate, educational, and fun as well as parenting education workshops, medical and legal resources/referrals, holistic counseling, and life skills training.
The group’s motto is “Success through Collaboration” with the underlying assumption that a collaborative model is an excellent way to work together, that the potential exists for such work to create even more value in the nonprofit sector and that deliberate and strategic coordination among a group of nonprofits results in better outcomes than they could achieve separately.
For more information and to work with the consortium, contact info@cardeacenterforwomen.org
