Research systems exploitation: The true cost to community-based organizations

Introduction Community-based organizations (CBOs) are not sidekicks to institutional success. We are the organizers, translators, connectors, and problem-solvers that make outreach, public health, and crisis response work in communities that struggle. Yet throughout the documented past, we have been treated by universities, state agencies, and larger nonprofits as expendable infrastructure. We are valued for our access to trust, language, labor, and logistics, but left out of funding, decision-making, and credit. And for us, credit is not just about recognition. It is how we build the visibility and leverage needed to secure future funding and partnerships. This system is not accidental. It is designed to benefit institutions while keeping CBOs and those they serve compliant, invisible, resource-starved, and underfunded. Whether it is research grants, public health campaigns, pandemic response, or climate response dollars, our work shows up in outcomes and slide decks without our names, without our voices, and without our consent. . . .