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Collective Impact: A Framework for Community Change
Donna Jean Forster-Gill Manager, Vibrant Communities Canada, Cities Reducing Poverty
Tamarack – An Institute for Community Engagement [email protected]
Collective Impact: A Story
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Complexity + Community Change
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them” ~ Einstein
Develop common ground,
compromise or compete.
Follow the
‘best practice’
recipe.
Use expertise, experiment and
build knowledge.
Learn-by-doing,
see what emerges,
adapt. Create stability, look for
opportunities to innovate.
Wicked Problems & Social Messes
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Complex problems are difficult to frame
The cause and effect relationships are unclear
There are diverse stakeholders
Each experience of is unique
The characteristics & dynamics of the issue evolves
There is no obvious right or wrong set of solutions
There is no objective measure of success
Characteristics of Complex Problems
Managing Complex Problems
TRADITIONAL
RESPONSE
CHARACTERISTICS
OF COMPLEX ISSUES
ADAPTIVE RESPONSE
Specialization Multiple Root
Causes
Orchestration
Silos Multiple Stakeholders Cross Boundary
Crisp Problem
Definition
Difficult to Frame Working Framework
Plan the Work, Work
the Plan
Emergent Act, React and Adapt
Resolve Paradoxes & Dilemmas Cope
Standardized and
Detailed Blueprint
Unique Minimum Specs,
Variation &
Customization
Short Term Intractable Long Term
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Ten Adaptive Leadership Principles
• Convene stakeholders
• Focus attention on issue
• Cultivate a high aspiration
• Use framing as a tool
• Build a good enough vision
• Chunk and link work
• Go for multiple actions
• Court and mediate conflict
• Maintain productive distress
• Acknowledge multiple accountabilities
» Source: Heifetz, Grashow, Linsky. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership.
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.
Organizatio
ns
systematical
ly 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
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Key Practices for Effective Collaboration
Assessing the Environment
Creating Clarity
Building Trust
Sharing Power and Influence
Reflection
The Collaborative Premise
If you bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with good information, they will create authentic visions and strategies for addressing the shared concerns of the organizations and the community.
» David Chrislip, The Collaborative Leadership Fieldbook
» http://tamarackcommunity.ca/g3s5l.html
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The Complex Nature of Poverty
“Poverty is a complex issue. There is no single cause and no one solution. Its successful reduction, and ideally its eradication, require a set of linked interventions undertaken by all orders of government working in collaboration with communities.”
Poverty Policy
Sherri Torjman,
Caledon Institute of Social Policy
October 2008
Elements of Collective Impact
Conditions Simple Rules for Complex Interventions
Mindset Working Differently – adaptive problems require learning and change to get to the answer
Structure Be intentional and pre-determined
Process Go deep and see problems differently
Leadership Systems Leaders with a commitment to the health of the whole
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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
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Collective Impact is…
…positive and consistent progress at scale.
- John Kania, FSG Social Impact Consultants, Oregon 2013 15
Used for Many Complex Issues
Teen Pregnancy Education
Poverty Homelessness
Health
Community Safety
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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?
Preconditions for Collective Impact
• Influential Champion(s)
• Urgency of issue
• Adequate Resources
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The Five Conditions of Collective Impact
Common Agenda
Shared Measurement
Mutually Reinforcing Activities
Continuous Communication
Backbone Support
All participants have a shared vision for change including a
common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to
solving it through agreed upon actions
Collecting data and measuring results consistently across all
participants ensures efforts remain aligned and participants hold
each other accountable
Participant activities must be differentiated while still being
coordinated through a mutually reinforcing plan of action
Consistent and open communication is needed across the many
players to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and appreciate
common motivation
Creating and managing collective impact requires a dedicated staff and
a specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire
initiative and coordinate participating organizations and agencies
Source: FSG
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The Phases of Collective Impact
Phases of Collective Impact
Phase IV
Sustain Action
and Impact
Components
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 III
Organize for
Impact
Phase II Initiate Action
Phase I Generate Ideas and Dialogue
Governance
and
Infrastructure
Strategic
Planning
Community
Involvement
Evaluation
And
Improvement
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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.
• Move from buy-in to ownership
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
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Block By Block Initiative - Winnipeg
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.
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Thinking About Shared Measurement
Process: # of people/orgs at table, # of community
presentations, articles, etc
Progress: # of programs, # of new initiatives, etc
Policy: policy changes in own or other organizations, new
investments, gov. policy changes
Population : # of people moved out of poverty, # of high school graduates, # of
low birth weight babies
Shared Measurement
Shared Measurement
• Who is collecting the data?
• Will they share the data?
• How effective is the data source?
• What data do we have to collect?
• What resources will we need?
• Does this measure actually move us on our collective impact agenda?
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Population Results (known as the Halton 7): Children are healthy Children are learning Children are positively connected Children are safe Families are strong and stable Schools are connected to the community Neighbourhoods are where we live, work and play Performance Results: Building towards service integration Supporting children, youth, and families through neighbourhood Hubs Turning research into action
Mutually Reinforcing Activities
• Agreement on key outcomes.
• Orchestration and specialization.
• Complementary – sometimes “joined up” - strategies to achieve outcomes.
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Coordination in Saint John
Poverty
• Housing • Transportation • Education to Employment • Early Childhood Development • Workforce Development • Neighborhood Renewal
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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, Finland
Heart 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.
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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
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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
• Build a common understanding of the problem
• Provide strategic guidance to develop a common agenda
• Ensure mutually reinforcing activities take place:
– Coordinate and facilitate communication and collaboration
– Convene partners and key external stakeholders
– Catalyze or incubate new initiatives or collaborations
– Provide technical assistance
– Create paths for, and recruit, new partners
– Seek opportunities for alignment with other efforts
• Collect, analyze, interpret, and report data
• Catalyze or develop shared measurement systems
• Provide technical assistance for building partners’ data capacity
• Build public will, consensus and commitment:
– Create a sense of urgency and articulate a call to action
– Support community member engagement activities
– Produce and manage external communications
• Advocate for an aligned policy agenda
• Mobilize and align public and private funding to support goals
Six Key Functions for the Backbone Organization
Guide Vision and Strategy
Support Aligned Activities
Establish Shared Measurement Practices
Build Public Will
Advance Policy
Mobilize Funding
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Collective Impact at Work in Poverty Reduction
Key Roles in CI
• Organizational Leadership
• Credibility to convene partners
• Commitment to issue
• Capacity and resources
Convener
• Fiduciary responsibility
• Host and supervise staff
• May provide additional resources as an investor
• Alignment with mission of sponsor
Fiscal Sponsor
• Staff Leadership
• Servant leadership to collaborative table
• Focus on collective impact conditions
• Continuous communications to build community will
Backbone
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Key Roles in CI …/2
• Multi-sector partners with Spheres of Influence
• Commit their organizations to the change outcomes
• May be advisory in nature
Leadership Table
• Composed of a smaller sub-set of Leadership Table and Work / Action Team leadership
• Action-Oriented, stewards effort
Steering Committee
• Composed of members of Leadership Table and external community
• Drive forward sub-sets of the collective effort
Work / Action Teams
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
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Collective Impact
• Use collective impact as a framing tool
• Assess whether everyone in the collaborative is working on the same agenda
• Developing success measures (process and outcome indicators)
• Learn about what’s working and let go of those things that are not making an impact
Collective Impact at Work in Transportation
Affordable Transit Passes: Calgary, Hamilton, Peel Region, Saint John, Edmonton, Guelph
Dial-A-Ride: Charlotte County, NB
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Collective Impact at Work in Income Security
Collective Impact at Work in Education
Community Learning Centres in Quebec
Halton Our Kids Network
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Collective Impact at Work in Community Safety
• Block by Block Project in Winnipeg
• Prince Albert, Saskatchewan
• REACH Edmonton
Questions ??
For more resources visit:
www.tamarackcci.ca
www.collectiveimpactforum.org
www.fsg.org
