Resource Library

Collective Impact Paper
Read the Article

ARTICLE | Collective Impact

Collective Impact, Articles

Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations.

The scale and complexity of the U.S. public education system has thwarted attempted reforms for decades. Major funders, such as the Annenberg Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trusts have abandoned many of their efforts in frustration after acknowledging their lack of progress. Once the global leader—after World War II the United States had the highest high school graduation rate in the world—the country now ranks 18th among the top 24 industrialized nations, with more than 1 million secondary school students dropping out every year. The heroic efforts of countless teachers, administrators, and nonprofits, together with billions of dollars in charitable contributions, may have led to important improvements in individual schools and classrooms, yet system-wide progress has seemed virtually unobtainable.

 

John Kania & Mark Kramer

By John Kania & Mark Kramer

John Kania is passionate about getting people, organizations, and communities to change for the better. He co-authored two recent watershed papers: Collective Impact and Making Collective Impact Work. As a Board member and Managing Director at FSG for the past nine years, John focuses on inspiring FSG's Leadership Team, consultants, and operations staff to achieve excellence in their work. John was a keynote speaker at Tamarack's 2011 Communities Collaborating Institute.

Mark Kramer is co-founder and Managing Director of FSG, a nonprofit consulting firm established in 2000 and specializing in strategy, evaluation, and research. As the primary overseer of FSG‘s consulting practice, he helps drive the vision and growth of the firm and leads engagements across all of FSG’s impact areas, with a particular focus on shared value.

Related Posts