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There is a long history of experiments to align the actions and thoughts of many different organisations trying to achieve some kind of social change – better early years education; less violence; improved public health or urban regeneration. These have usually involved some combination of shared plans, targets, and commitments. They have had many names. Many books have been written about them, and many universities have run courses to make people better collaborators. People on the sharp end of social problems want those with money and power to get their act together and not work at cross purposes. Responsible funders naturally want to find ways to make their money go further, and recognise that this is bound to involve collaboration - pooling resources of all kinds with others.

Earlier this year, the Collective Impact Forum gathered feedback through its second annual survey of members who have created an online profile. The purpose of this survey was to assess the Forum’s progress to date and to better understand needs in the field.

The Integration Initiative—or “TII”—began in 2010 as a pioneering approach to community development. Living Cities designed TII, a precursor to the collective impact model, to support “bold, promising approaches that have the potential to transform the lives of low-income people and the communities in which they live.”

We have been inspired watching the field of collective impact progress over the past five years, as thousands of practitioners, funders, and policymakers around the world employ the approach to help solve complex social problems at a large scale. The field’s understanding of what it takes to put the collective impact approach into practice continues to evolve through the contributions of many who are undertaking the deep work of collaborative social change, and their successes build on decades of work around effective cross-sector collaboration.

A closer look at the diversity of collective impact efforts reveals a diversity of backbone infrastructure designs as well. Depending on the size and scope of the collective impact effort, and the unique context it is operating in, the backbone may look and be structured differently.

We can, whenever and wherever we choose, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that. Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact that we haven't so far. - Ronald Edmonds That quote encapsulates the challenge and the commitment of RGV Focus--to ensure all students in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) of Texas earn a degree or credential that leads to a meaningful career.

The Collective Impact Forum and FSG recently co-hosted a 3-part webinar series, “Getting Started with Collective Impact.” This series prompted some engaging dialogue among webinar speakers and attendees about challenges and opportunities when initiating collective impact. Several notable themes and thought-provoking questions emerged during each webinar:

This is Efrain Gutierrez with FSG and Grisel M. Robles-Schrader with Robles-Schrader Consulting. We want to share some suggestions to help cisgender heterosexual allies support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQ+) communities in culturally responsive evaluations.

The business community can be a powerful partner in collective impact. The overwhelming majority of collective impact initiative leaders we surveyed for our new report said that business involvement enhanced their initiatives’ ability to improve educational outcomes for children impacted by poverty. The value business brings to an initiative is significant, from relationships with government officials at all levels, to access to resources, to expertise in designing and executing strategies. These attributes often complement those brought by nonprofits organizations, foundations, public education and other participants. We believe, and more importantly, initiative leaders believe that business involvement materially enhances the odds that collective impact will live up to its considerable potential.

The New Year is a great time for reflection and often, a much needed opportunity for rejuvenation. (You can find some excellent self-care recommendations over at Nonprofit with Balls. We’re big fans of the “no email during the holidays” rule.) For our last blog of the year, we’re excited to share the Collective Impact Forum’s most popular reads and resources for 2015.