We have learned that …

• Improving the health and well-being of a community requires that diverse people and organizations come together, and that there are indeed legitimate roles for government, business, faith-based groups, schools, and other entities to assume. These systemic arrangements must be driven by solutions that lie deep within a community.
• Community-based organizations (CBOs) play increasingly important roles in helping individuals and institutions help themselves.
• Trust and credibility facilitate development of community-generated solutions.
• Collaboration requires strong community capacity outside of the governmental system; this capacity sustains pressure on public programs to collaborate with those most impacted.
• Outside support for collaboration can also help stimulate a restored sense of hope in participating neighborhoods, towns, reservations, and cities
• Effective collaboration can permanently alter the landscape of a community. Health status can improve by legitimizing the experiences of those most affected by services provided by federal, state and local agencies in collaboration with communities, business, and individuals.
• Nurturing community-based and organizational leadership to sustain change and improvement efforts—including succession planning—is important. 
• Being an independent organization able to serve an intermediary function, and dedicated to building community capacity is valuable.
• Indeed “relationships are primary; all else is derivative.”

These same lessons hold true for almost any community health improvement effort.

CommonHealth ACTION was created to help communities build on their strengths. Focusing on the intersection between public and community health practice, we are poised to enhance community capacity both inside and outside of government, and to work with public and private sector groups, including those beyond and those within the traditional health arena.