Collective impact

Collective Impact (CI) is the commitment of a group of actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem, using a structured form of collaboration. The concept of collective impact was first articulated in the 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article Collective Impact, written by John Kania, Managing Director at FSG, and Mark Kramer, Kennedy School at Harvard and Co-founder FSG. Collective impact was chosen as the #2 philanthropy buzzword for 2011, and has been recognized by the White House Council for Community Solutions as an important framework for progress on social issues. Collective Impact (CI) is the commitment of a group of actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem, using a structured form of collaboration. The concept of collective impact was first articulated in the 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article Collective Impact, written by John Kania, Managing Director at FSG, and Mark Kramer, Kennedy School at Harvard and Co-founder FSG. Collective impact was chosen as the #2 philanthropy buzzword for 2011, and has been recognized by the White House Council for Community Solutions as an important framework for progress on social issues. The concept of collective impact hinges on the idea that in order for organizations to create lasting solutions to social problems on a large-scale, they need to coordinate their efforts and work together around a clearly defined goal. The approach of collective impact is placed in contrast to “isolated impact,” where organizations primarily work alone to solve social problems and draws on earlier works on collaborative leadership, focused on collective goals, strategic partnerships, collective and independent action aligned with those goals, shared accountability, and a backbone 'institutional worrier'. Collective impact is based on organizations forming cross-sector coalitions to make meaningful and sustainable progress on social issues. Hank Rubin (author of Collaborative Leadership: Developing Effective Partnerships for Communities and Schools, Corwin press, 2009) and Leonard Brock (director of the Rochester NY Anti-Poverty Initiative) offer a practical description of collective impact by contrasting it with collaboration: “Collective impact really is much more than collaboration! Collaboration happens when we meet together; collective impact is what we do when we’re alone … Collaboration happens when we choose to sit in the same room and work together on the same project because we share an interest in accomplishing a shared goal … On the other hand, collective impact focuses on change inside each partner organization. It begins when we, as a community, agree to a set of shared outcomes … and then, individually, go back into our home organizations, work with our staffs, boards, and volunteers to figure out what we – individually and organizationally – can best do to achieve those shared goals and then choose to make changes to accomplish this. When each of our organizations chooses to shift and align our own work and priorities in this way, we set changes in motion in all portions of our community. And these changes will last a long time.” Initiatives must meet five criteria in order to be considered collective impact: Collective impact initiatives have been employed for an issues including education, health and healthcare, animal welfare, homelessness, poverty reduction, and youth and community development. Examples include: The Strive Partnership educational initiative in Cincinnati, the environmental cleanup of the Elizabeth River in Virginia, the Shape Up Somerville campaign against childhood obesity in Somerville, Mass, and the work of the Calgary Homeless Foundation in Calgary, Canada. Partners in Progress (PIP), an initiative of the Citi Foundation and the Low Income Investment Fund, supports a broad range of projects that use a collective impact approach to address the issues of poverty and urban transformation. It emphasizes collaborative approaches to these issues, particularly at neighborhood and regional levels, guided by a local community leader (known as a “community quarterback” or “backbone organization”). Its projects are also focused on data collection to show what is or isn't working. The projects range from engaging hospital, city and community organizations to improve health in an Oakland neighborhood, to uniting city officials, employers, and the community around jobs in Brooklyn, to using transit as a hub for health, housing, and economic development in Dallas. The White House Council for Community Solutions has recognized the potential of collective impact to play a major role in transforming the ways in which communities approach their social problems. A 2012 report for the Council found that, among 12 “needle-moving community collaboratives” that had achieved at least 10 percent progress in a community wide metric, all 12 met the conditions of collective impact. The White House Council's work in collective impact is being continued today by the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions. In 2014 iit launched the Collective Impact Forum (n partnership with FSG,), an online community to support those practicing collective impact. The Promise Neighborhoods Institute is a PolicyLink initiative to unite diverse American communities on improving educational and developmental outcomes of children in underserved areas. More than 50 communities have contributed neighborhood data, mobilized local leaders, launched advocacy campaigns and started multi-sector partnerships to demand federal-level policy changes to fund “cradle to college” programs nationwide.