Social Impact

Collective Impact: Shiny New Object or Real Solution?

CI

Some people in the field are drinking the Collective Impact Kool-Aid like water in an oasis. Others are bristling at the thought of adding this big, hairy, complex additional thing to their already overfull plates. Who is right?

This post isn’t meant to define collective impact in any great detail, nor sway opinion in one direction or the other. If you want to know what it is, check out this primer by FSG, a mission-driven consulting firm that is at the forefront of the collective impact movement nationally. My purpose, in 300 words (or so), is to try to synthesize all of the information and insights I’ve gleaned from the myriad of meetings, readings and workshops on Collective Impact that I’ve taken in over the past several months (most recently, at today’s SINC: 2016 Conference). But don’t expect a firm answer to the title question. I can only express amazement at how polarizing Collective Impact has become in such a relatively short time on the block.

Funders and philanthropic pundits laud Collective Impact as The Way Things Should Be Done. They firmly believe that service providers should be working across sectors to address complex, entrenched problems. Services should be coordinated according to a common agenda. Organizations should communicate, partner and work towards a common result, informed by data and supported by a backbone organization that oversees fiscal management and data collection for the collaborative. All of these efforts should be aimed at reducing the negative statistics and/or increasing the positive ones, to achieve a population-level result.

Sounds great, right?

It does, until you ask the CEO who is in the process of completing an audit, preparing for a board meeting, and working frantically to meet a key proposal deadline while trying to fill a vacancy in the development department. Our poor, beleaguered CEOs are just too busy and distracted to add more meetings, more talking, more data collection, and more partnership strategies to the mix.

We can sympathize with them, right?

We can, unless (or until) it occurs to them that Collective Impact isn’t an additional thing to do; it’s a different way of approaching what they already do. And that’s the sticking point. Collective Impact requires systems-level change within all of the organizations that undertake it, and it therefore requires the organization’s leaders to change.

Collective Impact is messy and complicated. It takes time – years, decades – before you’ll ever achieve results. It requires relationships and partnerships that are “built at the speed of trust.” And it requires more funding than any one organization has, to achieve population-level results that no one organization can reach alone.

Sounds impossible, right?

And yet, it also minimizes isolation and allows service providers to better understand the larger context and environment that influences their work. When properly executed, Collective Impact increases efficiency and generates the kind of results that we all want.

Sounds like that’s what it’s really all about.

Right?

Why is Everyone so Afraid of Results?

fear of results

There’s no purpose to this work other than to achieve results. So why are we afraid of them? Ask a service provider about intended or expected results and chances are they’ll start talking sideways about how difficult and complex it is to define success and/or impact in a measurable way.

Yes, tracking results is difficult. Yes, generating results is complex. Yes, there are many factors that can get in the way of success. I say so what. If you’re doing  service work and you’re not willing to track results (or at least try), then you ought to be off somewhere else, doing something else.

If you’re working on a project to support young people in getting college degrees, you should be able to state, at any given moment, exactly how many young people you’ve helped to get into college – over the past week, month, quarter, and year. You should be able to state how many are still in college, how many have dropped out, and what those who did are doing right now. That’s a result-based approach.

If you run a jobs program, how many people have you helped to get jobs? If you run an early education program, how many children are reading on level by third grade? If you run a drug abuse prevention/intervention program, how many people have you helped to rehabilitate? If you’re a basketball coach, is your team scoring more points than the other? If you don’t know, then you can’t possibly know whether your program is working.

There’s no downside to developing a results statement that’s responsive to the organization’s mission and activities. The worst that can happen if you miss your mark is that you learn things about your process that will allow you to make course corrections and generate better results in the future.

So pick a number and then go after it. Monitor it closely, every day if you have to. Post the number on the wall and update it daily, weekly, monthly. Get your team to buy into the idea that the number matters more than anything else.  Because it does. Convince them that the number is the main reason why they do the work.  Because it is. If they disagree, then they should be off somewhere else, doing something else.

Click here to learn more about Results-Based Accountability.  Or visit the websites of the Staten Island Foundation to download a useful tip sheet on writing powerful results statements.

 

 

 

The Theory of Aligned Contributions

skin a cat

As a cat lover and admirer, I’ve always been troubled by the expression “there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Why on earth would anyone want to skin a cat? But I have to admit, the saying makes a valid point. Any problem or goal can, and should, be approached from multiple perspectives and directions.  The important thing is that all of the contributors need to know what specifically they and all of the others are doing to accomplish the goal.

I learned about the Theory of Aligned Contributions as part of a workshop on Results-Based Accountability, sponsored by the Staten Island Foundation. The theory posits that there’s no ONE way to get it done (whatever “it” may be).  In short, it is a framework to for getting service providers on the same page and working together instead of in silos.  Much like its more prominent sibling Collective Impact, the Theory of Aligned Contributions is a multi-sector, results-based approach to collaboration that is intended to achieve a population-level result.

Also much like Collective Impact, service providers bemoan the “extra work” that comes with this broader, more coordinated approach.  I say, if the extra work will generate positive results, then it’s well worth the trouble.  Anyone who disagrees should be somewhere else doing something else, and leave the cat-skinning to those of us who are willing to do it together.

For those who dare to go tumbling down the rabbit hole of collaboration, here’s a link to an article on the Theory of Aligned Contributions.