This article demonstrates how the university back office can enable ambitious implementation partnerships between institutions of higher education and community-based organizations. It examines the Individual Development Account Collaborative of Louisiana, a $4 million asset-building program operated by the National Center for the Urban Community at Tulane and Xavier Universities, which produced more than six hundred graduates in less than two years, most of them first-time home owners. The bookkeeping and administrative requirements imposed by governmental granting agencies often tax the capacity of even the largest nonprofits, which lack the sponsored research infrastructure that the Cold War university has developed in consequence of processing hundreds of grants and contracts annually. Small nonprofits are best at delivering services to local communities; Research-1 universities are practiced at managing large grants and contracts. The article concludes that the administrative side of such university-community partnerships deserves as much attention as their programmatic side.