Community and Social Impact

Across the country, communities are calling for human services systems that uphold dignity, respond to real needs, and foster long-term solutions to the drive impact. CSI helps leaders move from transactional service delivery to transformational community partnership by:

• Supporting community-designed solutions that strengthen belonging, collective action, and opportunity.
• Advancing whole-family and whole-community approaches shaped by the needs families identify for themselves.
• Transforming systems through the integration of approaches such as the human services value curve, targeted universalism, and two-generational methodologies that amplify the CSI framework, center lived-experience leadership, and uplift culturally rooted, evidence-informed practices.
• Creating opportunities for public agencies and communities to strengthen cross-sector partnerships and co-design solutions that address real system and community pain points.
• Building deeper, trust-based partnerships across public agencies, philanthropy, and community networks.
• Aligning policy, best practices, funding, data, and operations to advance community-defined outcomes.

CSI is supporting states, counties, and communities nationwide in embedding community voice, belonging, and shared stewardship into the fabric of human services.

A National Framework + Hands-On Support for Transformation

CSI delivers tools, training, and partnerships that help agencies bring people, data, policy, and practice together for measurable community impact.

Core Components

Technology, Data & Innovation
Leveraging data, storytelling, and technology to improve outcomes, expand access, and shift narratives.

1. Leadership & Capacity Building
   Building collaborative leadership and organizational capacity across the human services sector that strengthen adaptive leadership, alignment, and cross-sector collaboration and collective impact.
2. Safety, Health, & Well-Being
   Advancing strategies through prevention, resilience, and well-being through community-aligned approaches that address root causes and strengthen the conditions that help families thrive.
3. Community Engagement
   Building shared power with communities by elevating lived-experience leadership, embedding community voice in decisions, and strengthening public–private partnerships.
4. Social & Economic Mobility
   Expanding whole-family pathways to economic security, opportunity, and resilience that includes cross-sector mobility collaboratives, benefit-cliff reform efforts, and integrated service strategies addressing housing, employment, childcare, transportation, and mental health.
5. Technology, Data & Innovation
   Leveraging data, storytelling, and technology to improve outcomes, expand access, and shift narratives.

Practical Pathways to Move From Ideas → Action

For Public Agencies

• Capacity building and leadership development for teams at every level
• Guidance for implementing the CSI Framework with a community-centered lens
• Training and curriculum to embed CSI principles into strategic plans, operations, and frontline practice
• Strategic facilitation for cross-system collaboration and alignment
• Tools to elevate lived-experience leadership and community voice
• Support designing community-driven strategies that reflect local strengths and culture
• Partnership on whole-family, two-generation, and place-based initiatives

For Funders & Multi-Sector Partners

• National insights on emerging community needs and promising models
• Opportunities to co-invest in community-driven innovation
• Evaluation, storytelling, and learning partnerships that illuminate impact

Real Partnerships. Real Change. Real Community Impact.

CSI’s work is shaped through partnerships with state and local agencies, community-based organizations, and national collaborators who are testing new ways of working that strengthen well-being, belonging, and opportunity.

Across the country, public agencies and community partners are piloting CSI approaches to address real-world pain points, improving service accessibility, aligning systems, and reshaping policies through a community-centered lens. These pilots demonstrate how meaningful collaboration can transform the experience of individuals, families, and frontline providers alike. We co-create strategies that strengthen family well-being and belonging.

Examples of CSI in practice include:

• State & Local pilots testing CSI approaches to address real-world service barriers and strengthen capacity for public and community partners to adopt community-centered practices.
• Impact Labs bringing lived-experience partners and human services leaders together to co-design solutions that improve access, practices, local policy, and customer experience.
• Multi-Year national initiatives/convenings that develop solutions and policy agendas that improve systems for under-resourced, system-involved, and system-impacted families.
• Coalition-building that mobilizes public, nonprofit, philanthropic, and community resources.
• Collective resource mobilization strengthening partnerships across public, philanthropic, and community networks to support individual, family, and community well-being.
• Leadership & lived-experience integration embedding community voice and expertise into decision-making, planning, and accountability structures to reflect community priorities.

Partnership Profiles

• CSI Fellows Presentation

Practical Guidance to Support Your Transformation Journey.

CSI Framework Overview (PDF)

Let’s Build Thriving Communities Together

Whether you’re an agency leader, community partner, policymaker, or funder, CSI offers clear pathways to collaborate.

Additional Actions

• Download the CSI Framework Overview
• Contact Our Team

Our team brings deep expertise in community partnership, equity-centered design, systems leadership, and belonging.

• Natalie Williams — Vice President, Community & Social Impact
• Karen Walker — Senior Manager, Community & Social Impact