The Prime Minster's Community Business Partnership (The Partnership)

This project involved a comprehensive review of the burgeoning literature on the concepts capacity building, social capital, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and their association with, even interdependency on, cross-sector collaboration, or partnerships. The literature was examined with two fundamental questions in mind: Does corporate Australia, through cross-sector partnership programs, build trust and stronger communities? And, how do we know? The project involved:

• Desktop research exploring the concepts corporate social responsibility, social capital and capacity building, their connections and the various methodologies of measuring them; 
• A series of focus groups with representatives from the corporate and civil society sector aimed at scoping Australian specific indicators for capacity building outcomes of cross-sector partnership programs; and
• Case studies of three companies and their capacity building partnership programs.