Collective impact efforts are complex and challenging because there are so many moving parts. This presents a communications challenge. There are some emerging examples of collective impact efforts that have successfully synthesized their work to a Plan on a Page.
Using an infographic approach, Child Friendly Leeds in the UK and Living SJ in Saint John, New Brunswick are able to tell their collective impact story in a compelling and user-friendly way and have limited this to one piece of paper. In the case of Child Friendly Leeds it is actually the back and front of the piece of paper.
Child Friendly Leeds has coined the phrase Plan on a Page but it is something that collaborative efforts should consider adopting. The Child Friendly Leeds Plan on a Page has seven main sections:
On their webpage, Living SJ’s plan on a page has evolved over time.
The first Living SJ example has four strategies including neighbourhoods, education, access to health, and employment. Two years later, Living SJ moved the neighbourhood strategy to the core of their work recognizing that the employment, education and health access work was driven by the neighbourhood strategy.
So how do you build a Plan on a Page? We are releasing a new tool to help you. We hope you will use the tool to build your plan and then share it with us. We also welcome your advice and suggestions about how we can improve this tool.