While organizations leading community initiatives play a crucial role in tackling public health challenges, their difficulties in designing rigorous evaluations often undermine the strength of their proposals and diminish their chances of securing funding. We developed a matching service funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Evidence for Action program to bridge these gaps. This service identified matched applicants involved in community-engaged research with evaluation experts to provide complementary expertise, strengthen evaluation capacity, and enhance participants’ ability to secure funding.

We conducted a mixed-methods evaluation of the pilot phase of the Accelerating Collaborations for Evaluation Matching Service from August 2018 to February 2021. Data sources included program records, participant surveys administered at 3-, 6-, and 12-months post-match, and semi-structured interviews conducted at 12–18 months post-match. We assessed outcomes such as match success, resubmissions, funding rates, and participant satisfaction.

Over the 2.5-year pilot period, the matching service successfully matched 20 of 24 referred applicants. Among these, 50% submitted revised proposals, and a third of secured funding. Survey results indicated widespread satisfaction with the partnerships. One-year interviews highlighted complementary expertise, bidirectional learning, and capacity-building as key benefits of these partnerships.

This pilot demonstrated the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of the matching service in creating rewarding collaborations for community-engaged researchers. Beyond funding outcomes, participants uniformly valued the partnerships and described them as mutually satisfying. This model offers a scalable approach to creating research partnerships to build capacity for the evaluation of community initiatives.

The Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children’s Cancer Consortium’s (Consortium) Office of Community Outreach & Engagement (OCOE) joined Stanford Medicine and Morehouse School of Medicine in implementing Engage for Equity Plus (E2PLUS), a multi-institutional community of practice to learn and share patient-centered and community-engaged research (P/CEnR) practices. University of New Mexico (UNM) facilitated this collaboration.

The Consortium formed a Champion Team of 12 people who participated in two virtual workshops facilitated by UNM. Consortium executive leadership (n = 4) participated in interviews, and investigators (n = 4) and community members/patient advocates (n = 8) participated in focus groups to provide institutional context regarding P/CEnR. This is a paper on the process and findings.

Through E2PLUS engagement, the Champion Team identified four strategies to address institutional health inequities: 1) increase participation of underrepresented groups at all levels of institutional leadership and advisory boards; 2) create an Office of Patient Engagement to train and support patients who participate in institutional initiatives and advise research teams; 3) expand community engagement training, resources, and institutional commitment to focus on community-identified social and health needs; and 4) establish an umbrella entity for health equity efforts across the Consortium.

While the Consortium had longstanding community advisory boards and faculty and staff with P/CEnR expertise, it did not have centralized and institutionally supported P/CEnR resources, policies, and infrastructure. By participating in E2PLUS, the Champion Team received technical assistance to leverage qualitative data to influence strategies to guide the development of Consortium health equity infrastructure and capacity for P/CEnR in Washington.

The effectiveness of community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships to address health inequities is well documented. CBPR integrates knowledge and perspectives of diverse communities throughout the research process, following principles that emphasize trust, power sharing, co-learning, and mutual benefits. However, institutions and funders seldom provide the time and resources needed for the critical stage of equitable partnership formation and development.

Since 2011, the Detroit Urban Research Center, collaborating with other entities, has promoted the development of new community–academic research partnerships through two grant programs that combine seed funding with capacity building support from community and academic instructors/mentors experienced in CBPR. Process and outcomes were evaluated using mixed methods.

From 2011 to 2021, 50 partnerships received grants ranging from $2,500 to $30,000, totaling $605,000. Outcomes included equitable partnership infrastructure and processes, innovative pilot research, translation of findings to interventions and policy change, dissemination to multiple audiences, new proposals and projects, and sustained community–academic research partnerships. All partnerships continued beyond the program; over half secured additional funding.

Keys to success included participation as community–academic teams, dedicated time for partnership/relationship development, workshops to develop equity-based skills, relationships, and projects, expert community–academic instructor guidance, and connection to additional resources. Findings demonstrate that small amounts of seed funding for newly forming community–academic partnerships, paired with capacity building support, can provide essential time and resources needed to develop diverse, inclusive, equity-focused CBPR partnerships. Building such support into funding initiatives and through academic institutions can enhance impact and sustainability of translational research toward advancing health equity.