The Aspen Institute's Forum for Community Solutions is placing big bets on the future of collective impact as an important framework for community change. Over the past several years, Steve Patrick, the Vice President and Executive Director of the Forum has brought leadership and vision to three critically important impact areas.
The first is the Collective Impact Forum, a web-based site designed to build the capacity of collective impact practitioners in the
United States, Canada and worldwide. Investing in growing the field of practice of collective impact is a pivotal strategy of the Forum.
This strategy links significantly to the Forum's second priority – the Opportunity Youth Investment Fund. Opportunity Youth are individuals who are no longer in education, the workforce and may face additional challenges engaging in mainstream society. The Forum commissioned a ground-breaking research paper which detailed The Economic Value of Opportunity Youth in the United States. The case is clearly made that the economic burden of not addressing the engagement of Opportunity Youth is significant and the need for comprehensive, cross-community solutions is required.
We estimate that the total taxpayer burden for each under-attached opportunity youth is $215,580. The total social burden is $596,640 per youth. These figures represent threshold values for deciding on the optimal investment in such youth. That is, investments up to this amount to ensure that opportunity youth are fully productive would pay for themselves. Across the 3.3 million such youth, the total fiscal loss is $707 billion and the total social loss is $1.96 trillion (expressed as lump sum amounts at age 20).
The Economic Value of Opportunity Youth. January 2012.
The Forum for Community Solutions rose to the challenge by investing in collective impact approaches to address the issue of Opportunity Youth in 23 communities across the US. Under the leadership of Steve Patrick, the Forum has combined their understanding of collective impact with the practice of community change. More recently, the Forum brought top US employers to the table by launching the '100,000 Opportunities Initiative' which is designed to create pathways to economic opportunities for America's youth.
The third priority of the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions is to dive in and deeply understand the important role that place has on community change and collective impact efforts. In September 2014, the Forum convened a meeting of funders and place-making partners which culminated in the report 'Towards a Better Place' published in September 2014.
The report identified the following recommendations for funders when investing in place-making change:
- Resourcing community engagement and collaboration
- Making a long term commitment to community change efforts
- Coordinating multiple funders working in the same place
- Co-investing in good work that is already happening or emerging from community partners
- Leveraging the foundation's name and status to increase visibility and access of partners on the ground
- And learning as you go, being open to different pathways to success
The Aspen Forum for Community Solutions is building Collective Impact 3.0. Through research, investments, place-based practice and engaging leadership, they are bringing traditional and non-traditional partners to community change efforts.
Steve Patrick, Vice President and Executive Director of the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions is a keynote speaker at Tamarack's Community Change Institute, September 26-30, 2016 in Toronto, Ontario. Join us to learn about the amazing journey of the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions and the lessons they are learning about disrupting the status quo by investing in community change.
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