Collective Impact Overview: A Framework for Community Change

Donna Jean Forster-GillProgram Manager,

Vibrant Communities Canada – Cities Reducing Povertywww.vibrantcanada.ca -

donnajean@tamarackcommunity.ca

An Overview of Collective Impact

Community Foundation of Greater Cincinnati Collective Impact: Pulling Together

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZZRvNXOozc

Trust

Turf

Loose Tight

Compete Co-exist Communicate Cooperate Coordinate Collaborate Integrate

Competition for clients, resources, partners, public attention.

No systematic connection between agencies.

Inter-agency information sharing (e.g. networking).

As needed, often informal, interaction, on discrete activities or projects.

Organizations systematically adjust and align work with each other for greater outcomes.

Longer term interaction based on shared mission, goals; shared decision-makers and resources.

Fully integrated programs, planning, funding.

The Collaboration Spectrum

3

SUST

AIN &

GROW

MATURITYEXPLORATION

CREATIVE DESTRUCTIONDEVELOPMENT

crisis

reconnect

managenew

thinking

chaos

develop &adapt

birth

expandpossibilities

& buy-inplacebets

refineshared vision

conserve

DIRECTION &

CORE LEADERSHIP

decliningoutcomes

choice

unravel

Collaborative Life Cycle

Key Practices for Effective Collaboration

Assessing the Environment

Creating Clarity

Building Trust

Sharing Power and Influence

Reflection

Why Collective Impact

From Isolated Impact to Collective Impact

Isolated Impact • Funders select individual grantees

• Organizations work separately

• Evaluation attempts to isolate a particular organization’s impact

• Large scale change is assumed to depend on scaling organizations

• Corporate and government sectors are often disconnected from foundations and non-profits.

Collective Impact • Funders understand that social

problems – and their solutions – arise from multiple interacting factors

• Cross-sector alignment with government, nonprofit, philanthropic and corporate sectors as partners

• Organizations actively coordinating their actions and sharing lessons learned

• All working toward the same goal and measuring the same things

Used for Many Complex IssuesTeen Pregnancy Education

PovertyHomelessness

Health

Community Safety

SETTING THE STAGE FOR COLLECTIVE IMPACT

Preconditions for Collective Impact

• Influential Champion(s)

• Urgency of issue

• Adequate Resources

Collective Impact – Framing Questions

• Do we aim to effect ―needle- change (i.e., 10% or more) on a community-wide metric?

• Do we believe that a long-term investment (i.e., three to five-plus years) by stakeholders is necessary to achieve success?

• Do we believe that cross-sector engagement is essential for community-wide change?

• Are we committed to using measurable data to set the agenda and improve over time?

• Are we committed to having community members as partners and producers of impact?

From White House Council on Community Change

Collective Impact Efforts Tend to Transpire Over Four Key Phases

Phases of Collective Impact

Phase IVSustain Action

and ImpactComponents for Success

Identify champions and form cross-

sector group

Create infrastructure (backbone and

processes)

Convene community stakeholders

Facilitate community

outreach

Engage community and build public

will

Map the landscape and use data to

make case

Create common agenda (common

goals and strategy)

Hold dialogue about issue, community

context, and available resources

Facilitate community

outreach specific to goal

Analyze baseline data to ID key

issues and gaps

Establish shared metrics (indicators, measurement, and

approach)

Facilitate and refine

Continue engagement and

conduct advocacy

Support implementation

(alignment to goal and strategies)

Collect, track, and report progress

(process to learn and improve)

Determine if there is consensus/urgency

to move forward

Phase IIIOrganize for

Impact

Phase IIInitiate Action

Phase IGenerate Ideas

and Dialogue

Governance and Infrastructure

Strategic Planning

Community Involvement

Evaluation AndImprovement

WHAT IS COLLECTIVE IMPACT

Five Conditions for Collective Impact

SpecializedAgendas

FragmentedMeasurements

IndependentActivities

SporadicCommunication

UnsupportedEfforts

Common Agenda

SharedMeasurement

Mutually Reinforcing

Activities

ContinuousCommunication

BackboneOrganization

Common Agenda

What makes the difference between a good movie and a bad movie?

“Getting everyone involved to make the same movie!”

- Francis Ford Coppola

Common Agenda

• Define the challenge to be addressed.

• Acknowledge that a collective impact approach is required.

• Establish clear and shared goal(s) for change.

• Identify principles to guide joint work together.

Communication in Tillamook County, Oregon

Teen Pregnancy

According to the Health Department summary, Tillamook county "found that forming partnerships and working together toward a desired result can bring about astounding results. ... Their turn-around was an evolutionary process, with new partners bringing contributions forward at different times."

No Shared Agenda

Reduce Teenagers Giving Birth

Reduce Teenagers Getting Pregnant

Building a Common Agenda Prior History Positive or negative impact

Pressing Issue Galvanize leaders across sectors

Data Determine what you need to understand impact of the issue on community

Community Context Is there community buy in? Determine community leverage opportunities

Core Group Determine who needs to be involved in core group

Convener Trusted leadership to facilitate collaborative efforts

Community Engagement

Determine how to engage the broader community in the effort

5 things to consider when building a common agenda

1. Who’s driving the agenda?

2. How complex is the issue?

3. How does the issue play out in the community?

4. Who is doing what already?

5. What are the next steps?

Shared Measurement

• Identify key measures that capture critical outcomes.

• Establish systems for gathering and analyzing measures.

• Create opportunities for “making-sense” of changes in indicators.

Collaboration in CincinnatiEducational Achievement

Homelessness

STRIVE in Cincinnati• Over three hundred educational

organizations, human service groups, government agencies and philanthropies and private businesses.

• Shared agreement on 15 key milestones and 72 measures along a student road-map of success.

• A strong back-bone organization supporting a variety of “networks” supporting each key milestone.

• Measureable progress in most key indicators in recent years.

Strive Partnership

Goals: Working together along the educational continuum to drive better results in education so that every child…• Is prepared for school• Is supported inside and outside of school• Succeeds academically • Enrolls in some form of postsecondary education• Graduates and enters a career

Results: 10% increase in graduation rates in Cincinnati since 2003; 16% increase in college enrollment rate in Covington, KY since 2004

Shared Measurement in Vibrant Communities Canada

Process: # of people/orgs at table, # of community presentations, articles, etc

Progress: # of programs, # of new initiatives, etc

Policy:

policy c

ha

nges i

n

own

or

ot

her

orga

nizati

ons,

ne

w i

nvest

me

nts, g

ov.

policy c

ha

nges

Shared Measurement

Mutually Reinforcing Activities

• Agreement on key outcomes.

• Orchestration and specialization.

• Complementary – sometimes “joined up” - strategies to achieve outcomes.

Coordination in Saint JohnPoverty

• Housing• Transportation• Education to Employment• Early Childhood Development• Workforce Development• Neighborhood Renewal

Continuous Communication

• Create formal and informal measures for keeping people informed

• Communication is open and reflect a diversity of styles

• Difficult issues are surfaced, discussed and addressed

Cooperation in Karelia, FinlandHeart Disease

Close collaboration with a range of organizations has been an essential element of success. Diabetes Voice. May 2008. Volume 53. Special Issue.

Common Agenda: reduce heart disease.

Focus on measuring & reducing a variety of key risk factors (e.g. high fat food diet, smoking, etc.)

Emphasis on mutually reinforcing strategies with multisectoral actors (e.g. changing farming practices, media profile, trade policy around production and consumption of dairy products).

Backbone support provided by regional health authority.

In and Out Communication

Backbone Organization(s)

• Guide vision & strategy• Support aligned

activities• Established shared

measurements• Build public will• Advance policy• Mobilize funding

• Like a manager at a construction site who attends to the whole building while carpenters, plumbers and electricians come and go, the support staff keep the collaborative process moving along, even as the participants may change.

Jay Conner. 2004. Community Visions, Community

Solutions: Grantmaking for Comprehensive Impact

Common Misperceptions about the Role of Backbone Organizations

• The backbone organization sets the agenda for the group

• The backbone organization drives the solutions

• The backbone organization receives all the funding

• The role of backbone can be self appointed rather than selected by the community

• The role of backbone isn’t fundamentally different from “business as usual” in terms of staffing, time, and resources

Common Misperceptions

Backbone Organizations

Source: FSG Interviews and Analysis

Lessons Learned about Backbones

1. Their value is unmistakeable. 2. Backbones shares strengths in guiding vision and

strategy and supporting aligned activities. 3. Backbone organizations shift focus over time. 4. Backbone organizations’ partners need ongoing

assistance with data. 5. External communications, building public will, and

advancing policy are common backbone challenges.

Source: Understanding the Value of Backbone Organizations in Collective Impact Initiatives

100 Cities/Regions/Provinces/Territories

reducing poverty together

8 Action Teams advancing shared priorities

Shared Aspiration: 1 million Canadians will move out of poverty.

Active Learning Community Network to scale up social change

Common Evaluation Framework with shared measures

Loop of continuous communication

Beyond Backbone: Other Critical Roles in Collective Impact

Community Ownership

Convener

Fiscal Sponsor

Backbone

Working Groups

Steering Committee

Leadership Table

Role of Convener

Convening and Hosting:  the convener initially calls the table together

Early Investor:  the convener is often an early investor in the collaborative effort

Fiscal Sponsor:  in many cases, the convening organization acts as a fiscal sponsor for the backbone infrastructure including holding funding for the collaborative table, hiring staff and providing administrative infrastructure

Trusted partner:  convening organizations are often members of the collaborative roundtables but not the chair or lead, this role is held by another member of the roundtable

9 Leadership principles for Backbone Leaders

1. View the system you are trying to change through a lens of complexity

2. Let the vision be “good enough” rather than trying to plan every little detail

3. Live with balance between data and intuition, planning and action, safety and risk

4. Be comfortable with uncovering paradox and tensions

5. Don’t wait to be “sure” before proceeding with actions

6. Create an environment of information, diversity and difference, connections and relationship

7. Mix cooperation and competition – it’s not one or the other

8. Understand that informal conversations, gossip and rumor contribute to mental models, actions and beliefs. Listen to these.

9. Allow complex systems to emerge out of the interaction of systems, ideas and resources.

RESULTS OF COLLECTIVE IMPACT

• Significant shifts in policy• Needle Moving Change• Unlikely suspects working together• Innovative solutions to complex

problems• Increased community engagement• Increased awareness of complex issues• Feeling of control over some of society’s

wicked problems

Things to Consider in Collective Impact

• Patient capital • Persistence for longer term systems change • Align funders across sectors to common

agenda • Legitimize the work of the collaborative table• No playbook, support and advance the skills

and capacity of collaborative partners• Learn what’s working and quickly let go of

what isn’t

Reflecting on Collective Impact

Think – Pair – Share

• What have I learned about collective impact that I can apply to my role in the Halton Our Kids Network?

• What other questions do I have?

Additional Resources

Stanford Social Innovation Review articles on Collective Impact: www.fsg.org

Resources for Backbones - http://tamarackcci.ca/blogs/sylvia-cheuy/champions-change-leading-backbone-organization-collective-impact

Collective Impact Readiness Tool: http://vibrantcanada.ca/content/collective-impact-readiness-assessment-tool

Thank YouEnjoy the Collective Impact Journey!