Launching the Jeffco CPRM: A Public, Countywide Partnership Database
Overview
Jefferson County, Colorado, is home to a rich ecosystem of cross-sector partners working collaboratively to improve social, health, and economic outcomes.
However, despite the value of these partnerships, the network itself often remains invisible, preventing communities from effectively leveraging resources, reducing redundancy, and aligning strategies for greater collective impact.
To address this challenge, Visible Network Labs, in collaboration with the Colorado Gives Foundation, launched the Jeffco PARTNER CPRM™, the first-ever public-facing county community partnership database.
This platform is designed to provide data tracking and network mapping for partners in Jefferson County, promoting informed collaboration and community-driven solutions.
The Need
Communities like Jefferson County have numerous organizations working in tandem across various sectors, from health and education to economic development and social services. Despite the interconnectivity of these efforts, the lack of a centralized data repository has historically made it difficult for organizations to collaborate effectively. As a result, resources are often duplicated, strategies become misaligned, and the potential for collective impact is minimized.
Recognizing this issue, the goal of the Jeffco PARTNER CPRM™ is to make these networks visible and accessible, allowing organizations to track partnerships, assess their influence, and optimize their resources to achieve community-wide goals. The system provides real-time insights into network connections, making it possible to build stronger, more effective relationships across the county.
Project Goals
The primary goals of the Jeffco PARTNER CPRM™ project include:
Mapping the Jefferson County Ecosystem
Develop a comprehensive database of organizations across Jefferson County, their focus areas, and their existing connections. This database will be continually updated to reflect changes and new relationships.
Promoting Cross-sector Collaboration
By identifying partners that span multiple sectors (e.g., Jefferson County Public Health’s involvement in early childhood, food systems, and workforce development), the CPRM™ enables organizations to leverage cross-sector partnerships for greater impact.
Tracking Community Outcomes
The platform tracks how partnerships contribute to key focus areas like workforce development, food systems, older adults, and early childhood education. The CPRM™ helps community stakeholders understand whether these partnerships are helping to achieve desired outcomes.
Providing Actionable Network Insights
Interactive dashboards and reports generated by the CPRM™ allow stakeholders to assess the capacity of community partners, identify underrepresented groups, and increase the efficiency of collaborative community efforts.
Key Focus Areas
To map connections across different focus areas and programs, we chose to map the ecosystem including all organizations working on the following four key areas:
Early Childhood
Tracking relationships and collaboration within early childhood education and services.
Workforce Development
Mapping partnerships that enhance employment opportunities and economic growth across the county.
Food
Systems
Understanding how organizations collaborate to ensure access to nutritious food for all residents.
Older
Adults
Addressing isolation and services for the aging population by tracking collaborative efforts across sectors that serve older adults.
A Network Science Approach
At the heart of the Jeffco PARTNER CPRM™ is the use of network science to visualize and analyze the community’s collaboration ecosystem. Network science allows the CPRM™ to document not only which organizations are connected but how those connections influence the overall health and success of community initiatives. This analysis highlights areas where organizations can build new partnerships, strengthen existing relationships, and identify resource gaps.
For example, Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH) is involved across all four focus areas of the project, serving as a key player in the county’s collaborative ecosystem. By mapping their connections, the CPRM™ can assess their influence and identify opportunities for JCPH to foster new partnerships.
Outcomes and Impact
With the launch of the Jeffco PARTNER CPRM™, organizations across the county are already benefiting from access to real-time data, interactive network maps, and detailed reports. A few ways organizations are using these tools include:
Identifying Potential Partners:
Organizations like local nonprofits and government agencies are using the CPRM™ network maps to identify potential partners in areas where they seek to expand their influence.
For example, workforce development agencies are locating partners in food systems and early childhood to create cross-sector collaborations that benefit families holistically. By identifying partners with high trust, low involvement, and mutual partners, they can make a plan to reach out and ask for an introduction.
Visualizing Gaps & Silos
Many system change strategies focus on connecting all parts of the ecosystem and eliminating gaps to improve the flow of information, opportunities, and resources between different focus areas.
The Jeffco CPRM is providing a variety of insights on where more networkweaving is required. For example, the older adult services organizations did not report any active connections with early childhood and maternal health organizations – a major opportunity for closing gaps.
Targeting Underserved Groups
By using the demographic data integrated into the CPRM™, organizations are identifying gaps in their outreach efforts, especially when it comes to serving underrepresented or vulnerable populations.
Health and social service organizations, in particular, are using these insights to adjust their strategies to ensure broader inclusion and engagement. The platform includes numbers rankings and data from County Health Rankings and Roadmaps to further drill down on communities that require attention.
Explore the Jeffco CPRM Data Yourself
The Jeffco PARTNER CPRM™ is a transformative tool for Jefferson County, helping the community turn an invisible network of partners into a visible, data-driven ecosystem. By enabling organizations to visualize their connections, track their contributions to collective outcomes, and optimize their collaboration strategies, this platform promises to significantly improve the social, health, and economic well-being of Jefferson County residents.
To learn more about this initiative and explore the data for yourself, visit the Jeffco CPRM™ dashboards and reports below. You can also request a live demo from the Visible Network Labs team or contact us by emailing hello@visiblenetworklabs.com.