By bringing local governments and community partners to the same table, the Partnership for the Bay’s Future (PBF) Challenge Grant program facilitates collaboration and community engagement in policy making to bridge both community and local government needs and inform more robust, effective, and equitable policy.
During the two-year program, PBF commissioned Informing Change to evaluate the work of the Challenge Grant teams. The final report on the program focused on three key lenses: equity-centered policy making, community engagement, and regional collaboration. Key insights include:
- By design, Challenge Grant sites are actively advocating for policies that advance racial justice and equity.
- The cohort structure generated an exchange of policy research and strategies among jurisdictions, creating spaces where practitioners could share their challenges and successes.
- Fellows are the cornerstone of the Challenge Grant model by facilitating dialogue between government and community, fostering a better understanding of the preferences and constraints of each side, and strengthening the equity-focus of each team’s policies.
- Through increased access to resources for housing solutions, the Challenge Grant model has equipped jurisdictions and community-based organizations with the technical resources to explore innovative ways of tackling structural inequities in housing while balancing community demands with legal and bureaucratic processes.
Read about the lessons learned across the policy journeys of all the Challenge Grant teams:
Community-Government Partnerships for Equitable Housing: Lessons learned from a developmental evaluation of the Challenge Grants
We explore and evaluate the policy pursuits of seven local governments and their community partners to preserve affordable housing and protect tenants. Read more
