Child Development Institute (CDI) Partnership Strategy

In 2025, Medow Consulting worked with the Child Development Institute (CDI) to develop a comprehensive Partnership Strategy to enhance CDI's collaborative capacity and system-level impact.  

Aligned with CDI's 2024-2029 Strategic Plan, Innovating for Impact, which Medow provided support to develop, the Partnership Strategy evaluates CDI’s existing partnership landscape and establishes a framework for purposeful, high impact collaborations. 

Our Approach 

We used a collaborative methodology: 

• Internal Landscape Mapping: A partnership mapping survey across departments to capture the full scope of CDI's relationships.  

• Comparative Research: Interviews with executive leadership from six peer community-based agencies across Ontario's child, youth, and family services sector. 

• Leadership Engagement: Three sessions with CDI's Senior Leadership Team to align priorities and confirm actionable solutions. 

Key Outcomes 

• Strategic Framework: A principles-driven framework with a tiered partnership model, categorization criteria, evaluation processes, management approaches, and recommendations for sector mapping, risk management, fund development integration, and tracking systems. 

• Practical Toolkits: An evaluation rubric for partnership tier classification, an evaluation tool for new partnerships, and a checklist for partnership renewal assessment.  

Partnerships are essential to addressing the complex needs of children, youth, and families by enabling service integration, innovation, and systems-level change. CDI’s Partnership Strategy provides a strong foundation for mission-aligned, sustainable collaborations that support meaningful, coordinated impact across the sector.