OGDEN — There’s many moving parts to get nonprofit entities and a municipal government to work together.

Currently, Ogden City and several area nonprofits are exploring just how to work together.

Ogden Mayor Ben Nadolski said one of the key starting points is to find out where the gaps in municipal service are and work from there.

“Identify the gaps, come together collaboratively, speak with one voice and then fund those gaps and then measure and prove back impact to go back to the fundraising and say, ‘It worked, keep doing it again,'” he said.

To make his point, he pointed out that there are three main important anchors throughout the city.

“Weber State, the school district and the city are the biggest anchor institutions in this city,’ he said. “Collectively, we have a ton of impact on people’s day-to-day lives.”

He noted that the United Way of Northern Utah and OgdenCAN are examples of organizations that have helped bridge the gap between all of these entities.

“The United Way is taking a huge leadership role in the nonprofit world to try and help bring in this coordination and also support through capacity increases,” he said. “Ogden City comes on with the Ogden School District and with OgdenCAN — with the help of the nonprofit world and the leadership of United Way — we bring together the Ogden Way and we develop this kind of network for community impact.”

Meggie Troili, director of the Office of Community Development at Weber State University and OgdenCAN, said that none of their work with the city is going to change things overnight.

“This work is working towards a generational change,” she said.

She noted that the city recently had a summit with several area nonprofit groups to plot a course for future collaborations.

“It was the United Partnership Council — OgdenCAN Joint Summit,” she said. “That is where we all came together with the mayor to introduce this idea to the community. We’re not rounding up nonprofits — we’re sharing this vision and the mayor’s sharing his vision for this collaboration so people will join us and join these efforts.”

Troili said that the effort of bringing all of these entities together is only just beginning.

“We’re going to get back together in the beginning of the year and start talking about how we move this work forward,” she said. “We did get a lot of feedback at the summit, so we need to take everyone’s input into consideration about how we move forward.”