Collective Impact is all the rage. In my field, everyone is studying it, doing it, and lauding its virtues. Its birth is sourced from an article written a few years back in the Stanford Social Innovation Review by John Kania and Mark Kramer. The brilliance of this initial article, simply titled, Collective Impact, isn’t because it’s full of new ideas or because the authors identified a way of working that no one had considered before. Instead, their article offers an approach to largescale collaboration that is in effect a convergence of proven practice that they found in various places along the broad and complex landscape of social challenges.
They offered a design for others to consider, much like architects do by mixing together their creativity and skill with all they can learn and glean from the minds, imaginations, and experience of others.
Models Require Skepticism
It’s my nature to see all models and "prescriptions" as incomplete and rich with possibilities for failure. That doesn’t mean we don’t need models; however, I suggest the chances for success with just about any model improve with skepticism and inquiries about whatifs that might jam up the wheels of progress. Before going any further, here is the official, brief definition of Collective Impact:
Collective impact is the commitment of a group of actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a complex social problem. In order to create lasting solutions to social problems on a largescale, organizations including those in government, civil society, and the business sector need to coordinate their efforts and work together around a clearly defined goal. Collective impact is a significant shift from the social sector’s current paradigm of "isolated impact," because the underlying premise of collective impact is that no single organization can create largescale, lasting social change alone. There is no "silver bullet" solution to systemic social problems, and these problems cannot be solved by simply scaling or replicating one organization or program. Strong organizations are necessary but not sufficient for largescale social change.
It’s not too hard to nod your head in agreement when reading this definition. It makes sense. We know single organizations or even governments on their own won’t bring about largescale change. We know that even the best of programs won’t cut it either, even if we replicate them here and there, if not everywhere.
What about Public Participation?
Our affirming head nodding should not stop us from analyzing the definition, especially to see if anything big might be missing. The big miss for me is a lack of mention of formative and ongoing public participation in largescale change. The definition’s focus on bigger and better institutional collaboration is only part of the picture. After all, large scale change is about benefitting the public in the final analysis, not institutions.
I have no doubt Kania, Kramer, and their colleagues get this point: they do mention public will, for example, as one necessary activity when they write about backbone organizations, but as a definition, the one above suggests that the theory of change behind Collective Impact is all about or at least primarily about institutional changes in how organizations, businesses, and governments collaborate to achieve big results.
A Different Theory of Change
I wonder if the theory of change required has to be more focused on the community as a whole taking on responsibilities for problems and their solutions, with a pronounced emphasis on engaging citizens in collective action efforts. On the surface, such a theory might sound a tad simplistic or too broad to have legs, but I suggest such a theory of change is a compelling response to our collective habit to see "someone else" or "some other sector or group" as owning an issue or a solution.
While I am the first to admit that we need governments that are more focused on serving the majority of citizens, it is also true that people in general see governments as being ordained, through elections, to be the body that creates prosperity, improves our health and wellbeing, keeps taxes down, and on and on. We expect governments to own our problems, and when they don’t perform to our expectations they become our perfect scapegoats.
Of course, it is facile to think that we, as citizens, are divorced from all that ails us. In fact, the very actions or inactions of community as a whole are prime players in the health and wellbeing of society, not to mention our economy.
When a critic of an organization like mine that houses the homeless tells me society is wasting time and money on our efforts because homelessness still exists, such criticism is also saying that solving homelessness is a programmatic responsibility. Even worse, the criticism implies that if everyone can’t be helped, no one should. That said, the central message, which is a sad one, is that such critics don’t see themselves as a part of the problem, much less part of the solution.
The Community Owns the Big Picture
For Collective Impact to work, we need to overcome our engrained biases that segment roles and responsibilities in such a manner that, in effect, no one is responsible for the big picture. The potential of Collective Impact as a breakthrough model for big change is dependent on the ability of communities to move beyond traditional sector mindsets which tend to be more polarizing than unifying.
The potential of Collective Impact is far more profound than being a major innovation about how to do largescale collaboration. It offers community the opportunity to become the driver of change rather than a space within which divergent interests compete often to such degree that we tolerate, if not celebrate, a winnerloser environment. It offers the opportunity for people and organizations to rally around a We approach to problemsolving, solutionbuilding, to life itself as a collective.
Exploring Collective Impact
A past issue of The Philanthropist features a range of excellent articles on Collective Impact. Whether you are just getting your feet wet with this model or a seasoned practitioner, it’s worth a read.
I have used the metaphor of the "pendulum swing" in other pieces I have written. Within the context of my field of work, I define it as "the tendency to abandon current models and practice to adopt a new idea or model without sufficient attention being paid to the impact of doing so." One might also equate this to what is often referred to as the "bandwagon effect."
We have experienced this before with outcome measurement and Carver’s model of board governance, to name two. Broader or more general concepts also have swung the pendulum far beyond its equilibrium point. Collaboration is a prime example. We have so many on the bandwagon that nearly everything is called collaboration these days. Funders demand it as a matter of course. Everyone espouses its merits whether or not evidence of success is proven or even strongly apparent.
I am writing this piece because I want Collective Impact to be a successful model or framework of practice. I don’t care that is a blending together of current best and emerging practice. My sense is that how Kania and Kramer have crafted a set of principles into a cohesive, compelling, integrated framework is where the value of their work lies. The challenge is in the practice, I believe, more so than in rationalizing the model.
That said, with every innovation (which is what I believe Collective Impact is), we are faced with implementing it within the context of our current reality. What follows in this series is my thinking about how our current context or environment could subdue the potential of Collective Impact and render it far less fruitful than it can be.
This excerpt, from a longer article, is shared with permission. Read the entire article here.
