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Dancing with Unusual Partners (Part 2) – The Campus

This is the second blog in a series I am writing about collaboration, collective impact and unusual partners. When communities are trying to work and shift more complex issues like poverty, homelessness, the environment, etc, they require the shared wisdom of a wide-variety of diverse partners. This means opening up the collective impact experience to both usual and unusual partners. The usual partners are those organizations and individuals that we feel most comfortable working with. If you work in the community sector, it is likely that your organization feels most comfortable with other community sector organizations, government partners and funders. But there are a wide variety of other partners and resources in many communities that can be pivotal to successful collaborative and collective impact efforts.

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How Conversations with Children Can Change the World

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Dancing with Unusual Partners (Part 1) – Volunteer Centres

One of the challenges of working collaboratively in community is that most of us move quickly to the work and spend less time scanning the community to both identify and connect with unusual partners. Recently, I had the opportunity to present to the Corporate Council of Volunteer Canada. This second presentation occurred just a couple of days after a meeting with leaders of volunteer centres in Canada. 

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The Tango of Collective Impact

This weekend, I had the pleasure of watching couples dance the tango in a public square in London. The intricacies of the dance, coupled with the individual styles of each dance partner made for an intriguing couple of hours. As each new song filled the square, the couples would wait for a few strands of the music and then proceed to move together. Often with their eyes closed, each couple moved around the dance floor. 

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Community Needs Assessment or Community Understanding?

  I have a tolerate/hate relationship with community needs assessments. I really  wanted to write that I have a love/hate relationship with them but that would be  dishonest. I do not love them at all, but I do understand their importance and will  tolerate them...barely. In fact, I have designed them, conducted them, and used them  to inform and guide work on community projects and initiatives.

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Tales of Icebergs and Collective Impact

There are many interesting sights to see in Newfoundland and Labrador but in June the east coast of this province welcomes icebergs floating by in what is called ‘Iceberg Alley’ (http://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/ThingsToDo/IcebergViewing). You can even follow the locations and tracking of these magnificent icons of nature through a website called www.Icebergfinder.com. It seems to me that Collective Impact and icebergs have a lot in common.

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