Social Value Investing

and millions of dollars in support, hired highly qualified and passionate leaders and workers, and partnered with the city to run the park as if it were their own. The city government still owns the park and it is open to all for free, but CPC runs it and raises the money to pay most of its operating and capital costs. This was an uncommon approach for its time, but this kind of creative cross-sector partnership is becoming more and more common. It didn't happen overnight, and it required constant, tireless, and visionary leadership from members of the Conservancy and the city government. As good as this approach is, the partners are still trying to make it better, and they are helping other parks around the world replicate their success. Just blocks away in Chelsea, near the previously notorious and highly dangerous Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, is a park built atop the abandoned tracks of an elevated freight train line that once delivered meat, dairy, and manufacturing supplies to the city. A well-organized community organization with inspired leadership convinced the city not to demolish the tracks, and together the community and the city built a beautiful park with panoramic views that attracts nearly 8 million visitors a year. Similar to CPC, the non-profit Friends of the High Line manages the park for the city and raises funds from donors to cover most of the rather substantial operating costs. The Central Park Conservancy and Friends of the High Line are excellent illustrations of cross-sector partnerships, voluntary collaborations between organizations from the public, private, or philanthropic sectors that accomplish mutually agreed-upon goals. Today, partnerships are delivering goods and services more efficiently and effectively, and with greater benefit to society than one organization could ever achieve on its own. The two parks also show how partnerships between different sectors—in these cases, non-profit organizations partnering with government—often are able to overcome the limitations that constrain organizations in any single sector. Private sector organizations also bring unique contributions to partnerships, generally driving better outcomes for programs that benefit the public in addition to their profit-making purpose. We explore cross-sector partnerships as case studies at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where we teach. Our graduate students are incredibly bright and diverse, and our alumni span more than 150 countries and come with professional backgrounds from government, for-profit, and philanthropic organizations. However, they all come together with a common goal of improving society. In our courses on effective public management, innovation, and philanthropy, we often find ourselves describing cross-sector partnerships as a more effective way to serve the public interest. From the innovative High Line Urban Park in the heart of New York City to the many other examples in this audiobook—digital transformation of government services in India, economic and agricultural revitalizations in Afghanistan, and so on—organizations from all three sectors are coming together in different ways to meet their individual organizations' goals and serve the greater good. Why Do We Need Partnerships? The traditional view of how societies manage themselves is changing. Government alone has not been able to handle the growing responsibilities and costs of the issues it faces in the modern world—public safety, social welfare, public health, infrastructure, education, national defense, international relations, job creation, housing, energy, environmental protection, transportation, space exploration, scientific research, justice, and so on. In addition, most individuals and local communities do not want these important issues handled for them without their input, no matter how well-meaning the government may be. A community generally will have better everyday solutions than officials from their vantage points at City Hall or far away at the Capitol. Decentralizing government decision-making at the local level may help, but economic decisions are increasingly influenced by global developments, which have both positive and negative implications.