January 21, 2025
Nonprofit and public leaders need to recognize that in a closely divided nation that can change, we need to hold our values, especially DEI, and consider who we protect, what we resist, what we will build, and how we will bridge. To read the full essay, visit: https://collectiveimpactforum.org/blog/reckoning-with-the-u-s-election-10-reflections-and-recommendations-for-collective-impact-networks/
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August 26, 2024
The report is a pdf downloadable by registering at the Collective Impact Forum. It includes interviews and specific examples to illustrate the 3 mindset shifts and 6 skills needed to lead successful collective impact.
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January 15, 2022
10 years after the article that coined “collective impact” and disseminated the framework around the world, the team at the Collective Impact Forum (and the original authors) were invited to follow up with our biggest lesson about this work. We all agreed that the most important thing we could emphasize was about the importance of centering equity. We offer a…
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December 10, 2021
After visiting more than 200 collective impact initiatives over the past decade, I’ve found patterns about what goes wrong and also lessons for how to do it right. The essay reviews the 10 “worst practices” I’ve seen and shares 3 lessons for doing it well.
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July 20, 2021
The Covid-19 pandemic was an all-hands-on-deck moment. As communities were jolted into emergency response on many fronts – health, jobs, housing, education, child care, food, and mental health – collaboration and coordination became essential. In this new case study, we learn more about Milwaukee’s Civic Response Team and how it united local governments, philanthropy, and nonprofits to collectively manage response…
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September 02, 2020
Milwaukee’s COVID-19 response has been a remarkable mobilization of resources and organizations to address needs for shelter, food, testing, internet connection, and more. Necessity has forced such collective efforts in many cities, but Milwaukee’s may be unique in the civic architecture that has been built and that may be sustained beyond the crisis. The experience of Milwaukee’s Civic Response provides…
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September 09, 2019
One of the challenges many collective impact efforts face is having the financial support over a long enough period to make real progress on their stated results. The Advancing Healthier Wisconsin Endowment at the Medical College of Wisconsin has developed a promising model that made substantial eight-year-long investments in ten collective impact efforts coupled with extensive technical and capacity-building support….
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January 01, 2019
Many of us who work in the social sector do not know enough about Native populations, history, and historical trauma, and can learn from their efforts to use culture as solution to social problems and force for community building. This essay shares some lessons from my time working with and recently visiting the Lac du Flambeau in Northern Wisconsin.
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November 21, 2018
Social change often requires top-down and bottom-up to work together. To do this, we need to encourage and develop leadership in communities, and encourage those with power and privilege to share and give up power – to practice equity. This essay reviews two recent books, Anand Giridharadas’s Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World and Henry Timms…
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September 04, 2018
One of the things I’ve worked with several collective impact efforts to improve is meetings. If you are trying to stimulate inclusion, collaboration, action, and accountability, design meetings to achieve that. Doing so can help meetings accelerate results rather than linger in boredom. This essay shares 5 lessons with links to appendices with sample tools: Clarity about roles and expectations…
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