NOTE: Please contact
jboothtobin@jhu.edu for the P3 Lab team to create a copy of this survey for your organization or coalition's use.
This assessment is part of a set of resources that grew out of the P3 Lab's research on building and maintaining effective coalitions. Specifically, it comes from the
Coalition Reflection Guide for Existing Coalitions, which outlines a set of best practices and questions designed to assess your coalition’s strengths and challenges.
The guide explains each pillar of effective coalition architecture — clear roles and relationships that build trust, transparent processes for sharing power through democratic governance, and feedback loops to facilitate real-time learning and flexibility — and their connection to functioning, high-impact coalitions. There are a set of prompts for each pillar; they are designed to help you assess your current coalition architecture and design stronger, more intentional practices.
Answering the questions could take approximately 30-60 minutes, and the tool can be used for individual reflection and/or collective assessment with your fellow coalition members. For additional suggestions on how to frame or use the assessment, see p. 2 of the Reflection Guide. Once you’ve answered these questions, use the scoring sheet in the “Understanding Your Responses” section at the end of this guide to better understand your coalition’s strengths and weaknesses.
And remember: the aim is to identify areas of growth and to figure out the most effective coalition design for your unique context – not to receive a perfect score! This will be most useful if you and your coalition members are deeply honest with yourselves about your coalition’s architecture.
