Collective Impact Model for Non-Profits

By: Johnny Nguyen

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

Many systemic issues that have plagued American society from poverty to homelessness have been top of mind for many non-profits. Yet, when tackling these daunting problems very few non-profits have been able to build truly impactful initiatives by enlisting the cross-sector partners. According to the Stanford Social Innovation Review, many nonprofits are engaging in “isolated impact” by creating individual interventions with siloed buckets of funding, missing an opportunity for collaborations with government and commercial entities that could amplify their impact. With the lack of cross-sector partnerships, government and commercial entities can continue to contribute to problems and non-profits miss an opportunity to make an even more meaningful dent on social problems.

The solution to this is the Collective Impact Model Although meaningful systemic change can be daunting to accomplish, the methodology established by the Collective Impact Model effectively tackles some of our society’s toughest challenges.

This framework lays out five steps: common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and backbone support in order to achieve systemic change.

1. Common Agenda: A coalition of partners (non-profit, for-profit, government) must establish a common agenda and a shared vision for change. This includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to a solution.
2. Shared Measurement: Partners must collect and measure results consistently in order to ensure all efforts are aligned. In doing so, partners can keep each other accountable.
3. Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Partners will engage in activities that are differentiated but still coordinated through a mutually reinforcing plan of action that will amplify each partner’s impact and contribute toward the common agenda.
4. Continuous Communication: Consistent communication is critical to ensure trust is built, assure mutual objectives, and appreciation common motivation.
5. Backbone Support: An organization should be responsible for providing backbone support by managing the initiative, coordinating all partners, and ensuring that this methodology is being followed.

With these five steps, better cross-sector coordination would enable large-scale social change as opposed to that of the isolated intervention of individual organizations. We have seen organizations like Strive, that have built coalitions of over 100 cross-sector partners in Memphis to tackle chronic child absenteeism in schools leading to record increases in graduation rates. United Way Worldwide has adopted collective impact model in certain regions to amplify their existing work, and it has demonstrated results.

These successes are something we can replicate in your non-profit or any existing problem. Let’s talk through the way we can implement the Collective Impact Model to address an issue like COVID-19.

1. Common Agenda: The problem is that COVID-19 has led to drastic measures for social distancing that have prevented people from accessing essentials from groceries to home supplies. A coalition of government partners, local businesses, and non-profits have convened and set a common agenda to distribute groceries and basic home supplies to ensure accessibility for essential goods in the community.
2. Shared Measurement: Partners from government, businesses, and non-profit businesses must measure services provided in the same way. Measurements can include number of people served, retention rate of people served, demographic and geographic data of which communities are requesting services
3. Mutually Reinforcing Activities: Governments can provide subsidized loans and incentives for local businesses who engage in this initiative by providing discounted groceries or home supplies.
4. Continuous Communication: Partners should continuously communicate progress amongst each other monitory capacity of volunteers, if businesses can maintain supplies and goods, etc.
5. Backbone Support: A single major non-profit can convene this coalition, monitor data, and coordinate funding to push this initiative forward.

The proven success of initiatives across United Way and Strive reveal the promising results cross-sector partnerships deliver. The widespread implementation of collective impact model would enable all sectors to really tackle meaningful systemic problems that outplay that of individual interventions.