Collective Impact Brief by Pathway to Potential THE COMMITMENT OF A GROUP OF IMPORTANT ACTORS FROM DIFFERENT SECTORS TO A COMMON AGENDA FOR SOLVING A SPECIFIC SOCIAL PROBLEM, USING A STRUCTURED FORM OF COLLABORATION 1 Definition of Collective Impact 1 Kania, J. and Kramer, M. (2011). Collective Impact. Stanford Social Innovation Review. [online] Available at: http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/collective_impact [Accessed 17 Feb. 2016]. An agency of the Government of Ontario Un organisme du gouvernement de l Ontario PATHWAY TO POTENTIAL Collective Impact Brief February 2016
Five Conditions of Collective Impact Success The Stanford Social Innovation Review research shows there are five conditions of collective impact success. 1. COMMON AGENDA All participants to have a shared vision for change, one that includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions. This includes common vocabulary and shared goals. 2. SHARED MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS Developing a shared measurement system is essential to collective impact. Agreement on a common agenda is illusory without agreement on the ways success will be measured and reported. Collecting data and measuring results consistently on a short list of indicators at the community level and across all participating organizations not only ensures that all efforts remain aligned, it also enables the participants to hold each other accountable and learn from each other s successes and failures. 3. MUTUALLY REINFORCING ACTIVITIES Collective impact initiatives depend on a diverse group of stakeholders working together, not by requiring that all participants do the same thing, but by encouraging each participant to undertake the specific set of activities at which it excels in a way that supports and is coordinated with the actions of others. However, each stakeholder s efforts must fit into an overarching plan if their combined efforts are to succeed. 4. CONTINUOUS COMMUNICATION Developing trust among nonprofits, corporations, and government agencies is a monumental challenge. Participants need several years of regular meetings to build up enough experience with each other to recognize and appreciate the common motivation behind their different efforts. All collective impact initiatives studied in Kania and Kramer (2011) held monthly or even biweekly inperson meetings among organizations CEO-level leadership. 5. BACKBONE SUPPORT ORGANIZATION Creating and managing collective impact requires a separate organization and staff with a very specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative. The expectation that collaboration can occur without a supporting infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons why it fails. The backbone organization requires a dedicated staff separate from the participating organizations who can plan, manage, and support the initiative, including handling the myriad logistical and administrative details needed for the initiative to function smoothly. Standford Social Innovation Review, Collective impact by John Kania & Mark Kramer, Winter 2011 PATHWAY TO POTENTIAL Collective Impact Brief Page 2
Phases of Collective Impact Components for Success PHASE I Initiate Action PHASE II Organize for Impact PHASE III Sustain Action and Impact Governance and Infrastructure Identify champions and form cross-sector group Create infrastructure (backbone and processes) Facilitate and refine Strategic Planning Map the landscape and use data to make case Create common agenda (goals and strategy) Support implementation (alignment to goals and strategies) Community Involvement Facilitate community outreach Engage community and build public will Continue engagement and conduct advocacy Evaluation and Improvement Analyze baseline data to identify key issues and gaps Establish shared metrics (indicators, measurement, and approach) Collect, track, and report progress (process to learn and improve) PATHWAY TO POTENTIAL Collective Impact Brief Page 3
Collective Impact: Phase I ONTARIO TRILLIUM FOUNDATION GRANT COLLECTIVE IMPACT FEASIBILITY STUDY Pathway to Potential (P2P) and Family Services Windsor-Essex received funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) to explore the Collective Impact model s potential to achieve poverty reduction goals through a community wealth building approach, which focuses on providing economic opportunities to the most vulnerable members of the community. Phase I will take place over 12 months with funding of $63,800 from OTF. P2P is in the process of meeting with identified cross-sector stakeholders to brief them on the concept of Collective Impact, the local project and their potential role. P2P has hired consultant Paul Schmitz to continue the conversations with stakeholders and begin the strategic planning, community involvement and evaluation and improvement pieces of Phase I. Paul Schmitz is a Senior Advisor to the Collective Impact Forum. Paul is also the first Innovation Fellow in Residence at Georgetown University s Beeck Center for Social Innovation and Impact. Paul is the author of Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up (Jossey Bass, 2011). Paul Schmitz CEO, Leading Inside Out Senior Advisor, Collective Impact Forum at FSG Paul co-chaired the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign s Civic Engagement Policy Group, was a member of The Obama-Biden Transition Team, and was appointed by President Obama to The White House Council on Community Solutions. An agency of the Government of Ontario Un organisme du gouvernement de l Ontario ALIGNING POVERTY REDUCTION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GOALS Pathway to Potential has consistently advanced the idea that poverty reduction is an investment in our collective prosperity: poverty reduction and economic development goals must be mutually reinforcing. Given the persistently high rates of poverty and unemployment in Windsor-Essex, Collective Impact offers a framework for developing new solutions for these complex problems. Phase I of our Collective Impact initiative will be informed by the work already underway through Social Innovation Windsor Essex, for which WEtech Alliance and Pathway to Potential received $160,000 over 24 months from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. Social Innovation Windsor Essex is focused on building and growing new social enterprises, creating partnerships across institutional and sectoral boundaries to address economic prosperity, and building community wealth in Windsor-Essex. An agency of the Government of Ontario Un organisme du gouvernement de l Ontario PATHWAY TO POTENTIAL Collective Impact Brief Page 4
Case Example: Business Leadership on Poverty Reduction A Canadian case example of business leadership on poverty is the Business Community Anti-Poverty Initiative (BCAPI) in Saint John, New Brunswick. BCAPI is a non-profit charitable organization founded in 1997 by business leaders and professionals who wanted to move beyond charity and substantially reduce poverty in their community. In ten years, BCAPI helped to reduce poverty in Saint John from approximately 28% in 1996 to approximately 20% in 2006. The primary role of BCAPI is to serve as a catalyst for change, leveraging the skills, resources, and influence of its members and partners to help change the outcomes for those living in the cycle of poverty. BCAPI focuses on increasing opportunities for children, youth, and single-parents living in poverty to succeed in school and achieve employment that pays a decent wage. BCAPI is also responsible for ensuring that there are adequate resources in low-income neighbourhoods to help the families living in these neighbourhoods to improve their well-being, work toward economic self-sufficiency, and feel valued as contributing members of a vibrant community. This initiative contributes business and professional leadership skills and resources to specific community initiatives. COMMUNITY WEALTH BUILDING Community wealth building is a fast-growing, systems approach to economic development designed to strengthen communities by keeping wealth within the community. Unlike traditional economic development, which focuses on attracting outside industry into a community, community wealth building focuses on building on assets already present in the community by investing in locally owned and controlled businesses and jobs. Community wealth building is both tied to place focusing on businesses anchored in the community and democratizes capital within a community. Community wealth building has five main objectives: (1) increasing asset ownership, (2) broadening ownership over capital to anchor jobs locally, (3) helping to achieve key environmental goals, (4) strengthening the municipal tax base to expand social service provision, and (5) ensuring local economic stability. There are a variety of community wealth building models, including (but not limited to): cooperatives, employee-owned companies, social enterprise, land trusts, family businesses, and community development financial institutions and banks. A key strategy to foster local and broadly held ownership is to leverage the power of anchor institutions institutions that are tied to place, such as hospitals and universities to invest in community wealth building models in partnership with community organizations, unions, and residents. Collective Impact Phase II and Phase III Should Phase I indicate an appetite for stakeholders in Windsor-Essex to work under a Collective Impact model, the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) has Collective Impact grants specifically designed around this concept. OTF Collective Impact grants fund any or all stages of the Collective Impact process. OTF will fund up to $500,000 per year for up to five years. PATHWAY TO POTENTIAL Collective Impact Brief Page 5
Collective Impact Examples STRIVE TOGETHER (CINCINNATI, OHIO) Problem: High school drop out rates in the United States. The United States is ranked 18th out of 24 industrial nations in the area of high school graduation rates. Action: StriveTogether was started by a core group of community leaders who decided to abandon their individual agendas in favour of a collective approach. StriveTogether has brought together local leaders to tackle the student achievement crisis and improve education throughout greater Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. StriveTogether now includes 300 leaders of local organizations including heads of influential private and corporate foundations, city government officials, school district representatives, presidents of eight universities and community colleges, and executive directors of hundreds of education related non-profit and advocacy groups. Strive has focused the entire educational community on a single set of goals, measured in the same way. Participating organizations are grouped into 15 different Student Success Networks, according to the type of service they provide, such as early childhood education or tutoring. Results: StriveTogether partners have improved student success in dozens of key areas across three large public school districts. Despite the recession and budget cuts, 34 out of 53 of the success indicators being tracked have shown positive trends, including high school graduation, grade four reading and math scores, and the number of pre-school children prepared for entrance into Kindergarten. More information: http://www.strivetogether.org/ SHAPE UP SOMERVILLE (SOMERVILLE, MASSACHUSETTS) Problem: Childhood obesity in elementary school children in Somerville, Massachusetts. Action: Led by an associate professor at a local university and multiple funders, this program engaged government officials, educators, businesses, non-profits, and citizens in collectively defining wellness and weight gain prevention practices. Activities that Shape Up Somerville catalyzed include: Schools agreed to offer healthier foods, teach nutrition, and promote physical activity; local restaurants received a certification if they served low-fat, high nutritional food; the city organized a farmers market and provided healthy lifestyle incentives such as reduced-price gym memberships for city employees, and; sidewalks were modified and crosswalks repainted to encourage more children to walk to school. Results: Statistically significant decrease in body mass index among the community s young children in just three years (2002-2005). More information: http://www.fsg.org/publications/shape-somerville PATHWAY TO POTENTIAL Collective Impact Brief Page 6
VIBRANT COMMUNITIES CANADA Problem: Poverty reduction efforts in Canada have been stalled since the early 2000s. Between 1961 and 1977, poverty rates declined from 29% to 13%. Since 1977, poverty rates have remained in the 14-19% range. At the same time, human service agencies have simultaneously faced an increase in demand and a decrease in funding. It became clear that innovation and collaboration were needed to regain momentum to reduce poverty in Canada. Action: Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement, formed in 2002, serves as the backbone organization for a national multi-tier collective impact initiative known as Vibrant Communities. Today, the Vibrant Communities initiative includes more than 50 communities across Canada, each with locally designed initiatives and a multi-sector leadership team. Pathway to Potential, in Windsor-Essex, is an example of one of these 50 communities. Tamarack serves as a backbone for all of the Vibrant Community initiatives. The mission of this initiative is to: Create and grow a movement of diverse leaders and communities from across Canada who are committed to exploring, challenging, and testing ways to unleash the potential of communities to substantially reduce poverty and ensure a good quality of life for all citizens. Results: As of 2013, the work of Vibrant Communities has: influenced the lives of 203,000 Canadians who are now better off due to increases in income, access to food, shelter and transportation, and increased skills and knowledge; changed over 53 policies and systems to better support poverty reduction efforts including: adjusting policy processes to increase participation of low-income residents in shaping the delivery of programs meant to assist them, and changing the way poverty reduction initiatives are funded; engaged about 4,000 partners in the national collective impact effort including businesses, government, voices of experience, non-profits and others; and mobilized about $23,000,000 for poverty reduction. As an element of its work, Vibrant Communities has generated tools, publications, and other process improvement resources. For example, by 2010 Vibrant Communities had disseminated 223 reports, attracted over 2,500 media stories, and hosted 264 learning events. More information: http://vibrantcanada.ca/files/ci_case_study_vibrant_communities.pdf PATHWAY TO POTENTIAL Collective Impact Brief Page 7
An agency of the Government of Ontario Un organisme du gouvernement de l Ontario pathwaytopotential.ca info@pathwaytopotential.ca 519-255-6545 80 Chatham Street East, Windsor ON N9A 2W1 facebook.com/pathwaytopotential twitter: @pathwayrep