Collective Impact
For the past several years, a new kind of approach to creating systemic change has been on the rise. The Collective Impact model is a framework that calls upon actors in the impact eco-system to move away from isolated impact towards a collaborative structure with shared impact outcomes.
The simplicity of a Collective Impact approach belies the challenges that are embedded in the execution of working collectively on a complex issues. Collective Impact is about working differently. It is about understanding the complexity and nuances of the problem and using learnings intentionally as a driver toward innovation and impact.
Impact initiatives are aligned by regional or area of focus with a common goal and follow the five conditions and three preconditions and principles of practice.
Three Preconditions
These preconditions identify three community elements that determine the success of a Collective Impact effort. A good assessment of these elements enables groups to undertake the groundwork needed to build awareness, and ultimately momentum, around an issue. The preconditions are:
Influential Champions — Community champions raise awareness and commit their collective resources and networks to move CI forward.
Urgency of the Issue — Is the issue CI is addressing urgent and important?
Adequate Resources — Identifying what resources are required to have sufficient capacity to move forward in the development of Collective Impact. These can include resources for convening meetings, facilitating dialogue, research and community engagement in the early phase.
Five Conditions
Community Aspirations — Develop outcomes based on community aspirations that are ambitious enough to mean they cannot be realised through business as usual.
Strategic Learning — Lay a foundation of strategic learning and treat shared measurement as one part of a larger system of learning and evaluation.
High Leverage Activities — Focus on high leverage activates that can make a difference, regardless of whether they are collaborative or independent.
Authentic Community Engagement — Put community at the centre of the change process and ensure those most affected by the change are involved from the start.
Containers for Change — Ensure the backbone organisation focuses on creating a container for change that promotes diversity, challenging conversation and innovation.
Principles of Practice
Design and implement the initiative with a priority placed on equity.
Initiatives must address the systemic structures and practices that create barriers to equitable outcomes for all populations. Equity must be intentional in the design, governance, planning, implementation and evaluation.
Include community members in the collaborative.
Community members can bring crucial perspectives and value to the co-creation process when they are meaningfully engaged in the collaborative process. Member bring insights rooted in lived-experience that add value to the design, governance, planning implementation and evalutation.
Recruit and co-create with cross-sector partners.
Diversity is the key for collective impact. Actors from a variety of sectors participate and contribute to the communities’ aspirations, the learnings, and the implementation and evaluation of the collective initiatives.
Use data to continuously learn, adapt and improve.
Collective impact is not a solution but rather a collaborative problem-solving process. It requires the many actors to openly share information, learn from each other, observe and adapt. A strong learning culture enables continuous learning in a meaningful way.
Cultivate leaders with unique system leadership skills.
To achieve transformational change, leaders must possess strong facilitation, management and convening skills. They must hold the space for people to come together that builds trust and fosters shared meaning and shared aspirations. They need to understand and be comfortable with the complexity and non-linearity of system-change.
Focus on program and system strategies.
The focus should be on the collective program and strategies rather than individual programs and organisations. Focus on collective strategies that increase communication, collaboration across the community while shifting social and cultural norms that inhibit the communities aspirations.
Build a culture that fosters relationships, trust and respect across participants.
Collective impacts foundation is on authentic inter-personal relationships rooted in trust, respect and inclusion. All community members must be aligned to the communities aspirations and share a common understanding of the problem we are solving and how we will get there.
Customise for local context.
Customizing initiatives to fit the local community context enables the collaboration to honour, build on and/or align with existing activities; and pursue system and program strategies that are most relevant to the local environment.
