What is Collective Impact? (And why is everyone talking about it?)

March 29, 2016

Guest Blog by Lois Mikkila, Principal, LKM Consulting

Collective Impact Affinity Group Meeting
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Howard Co MultiService Center
9900 Washington Blvd (Rte 1), Suite I, Laurel, MD 20723
RSVP to Suzanne Knizner, Event Logistics Coordinator

There’s been a lot of buzz about Collective Impact ever since John Kania and Mark Kramer named and defined this approach to collaboration in their Winter 2011 article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. But what is it? How is it different from collaboration? Is anyone using it successfully?

Put simply, Collective Impact is a disciplined approach to multi-sector collaboration. It’s based on the belief that no one agency can successfully address the kinds of complex issues facing our communities. Challenges like ensuring student success, ending homelessness or cleaning up the environment call for harnessing the support, expertise and resources of multiple agencies across the private and public sectors. How to do that effectively has been the challenge.

What Kania and Kramer discovered when they looked at successful community-wide change efforts is that they shared five conditions – a common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, constant communication, and backbone support. This disciplined approach is what makes it different from much of what we refer to as collaboration. Let’s look at each condition.

The 5 conditions of Collective Impact

Common Agenda
Collective Impact begins with a common understanding of the problem being faced, a shared vision of the desired future, and a “framework for change” to reflect the strategies the group thinks are important for success. The community is involved in creation of the common agenda, so all the perspectives and voices that have a role to play are included in its development. Along with a combination of government, nonprofit, business, education, and faith communities, it includes those who have lived the problem being addressed as co-producers of the agenda, not just recipients of services.

Shared measurement
How do you know if the initiative is making a difference? A manageable number of community-level indicators (e.g., percent of students entering school ready to learn or pollution levels in the Bay) are needed to track whether the initiative is making progress. At the same time, individual partners also track and report on performance measures for their agency’s services. The value of all this measurement is in the partners coming together to make sense of the data, learn from it, and use it to drive performance improvements and systemic changes.

Mutually reinforcing activities
The efforts of each partner fit into an overarching plan and each understands how what they do fits into this bigger picture. Each is doing those things they do best and that they may be uniquely able to provide; they’re playing to their strengths. This coordination of efforts creates a cohesive approach to the initiative. The challenge is that individual actors may need to let go of some of the peripheral work they’ve been doing as they focus on what they do best.

Continuous communication
This level of collaboration can’t happen without ongoing communication among the partners and with the community and elected officials. The purpose is not just to inform but to build trust and support for the initiative. It’s easy to skip regular, ongoing communication, especially when things are really busy – and when aren’t they? But skipping this can lead to partners and/or the community feeling a lack of transparency, which will quickly erode any trust.

Backbone support
The need for backbone support is too often overlooked. How often have we been in meetings that produce great ideas and action steps – and then nothing comes of it? It’s likely no one was tasked with providing the logistical support needed to keep activities on track. The backbone provides dedicated resources to support the work of the collaborative; it guides the vision and strategy, but doesn’t set the agenda or drive the solutions.

Collective Impact in Maryland

There are a number of Collective Impact initiatives in different stages of development across the state. To name just two established examples…Baltimore’s Promise is a city-wide collaborative working to improve outcomes for youth from cradle to career; it has achieved measurable results on a number of indicators. Montgomery Moving Forward is mobilizing multi-sector leaders to address community needs, starting with workforce development, and has already achieved major public policy wins.

While Collective Impact holds great promise for harnessing community resources in innovative ways to make real progress on what seem like insurmountable issues, implementation can be challenging. Moving forward on all five conditions, building and coordinating relationships among multi-sector partners – it’s a lot to juggle.

The Collective Impact Affinity Group launched this month by Maryland Nonprofits serves as a resource and support for those engaged in, or interested in learning more about, this approach. It provides an opportunity to talk with peers about what’s working, brainstorm strategies to deal with obstacles, and learn from each other. I’m facilitating the meetings, so let me know if you’d like more information – or to let us know about your initiative. We’d love to compile a list of all the efforts already underway or in the planning stages as one of our resources. I can be reached at lois@lkmconsults.com.

Follow Maryland Nonprofits on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Looking for a new nonprofit career? Follow @MDNonprofitJobs.