Collective Impact Center
PURPOSE
The Collective Impact Center was established to serve as a knowledge-based platform for creating Social Innovation, Impact and Systems Change, and as a change hub that facilitates cross-sector partnerships among diverse partners, including corporations, governments and public institutions, foundations, non-profits, and social enterprises, using the Collective Impact framework.
Social Innovation
A new solution to a social problem that is superior to existing solutions in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and fairness. Solutions can take many forms, including products, services, content, ideas, processes, programmes, laws and regulations, and campaigns.
Impact
Refers to the meaningful change experienced by beneficiaries. The impact of a consultation can be defined as a measurable outcome, while broader impact can be seen as the impact of a consultation plus population-level or system-level change.
System Change
Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, has said that ‘giving a man a fish or teaching him how to catch a fish is good, but it's not enough’, arguing that ‘we need social entrepreneurs and social innovators with ideas and solutions that can bring about structural change in entire fisheries’. The Center conducts training, research, and consulting to facilitate cross-sector partnerships that can bring about system change through knowledge and connections.
MISSION & VISION
Introducing the mission and vision of the Collective Impact Center
MISSION
To contribute to the development of an impact ecosystem by generating and disseminating knowledge for Collective Impact and facilitating cross-sector partnerships to solve social problems.
VISION
A knowledge and connectivity-based change hub leading collective impact in Asia.
#Cross-sector partnership #Collective impact #Knowledge #Connection #Changehub #Impact ecosystem
What is collective impact?
Collective Impact is a concept proposed by Kramer & Kania in 🔗an article of the same name published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review in 2011. It has resonated with academia and practice over the past decade, with more than 1 million downloads and more than 5,000 citations, and the conceptual framework and practical insights presented by the authors have been actively applied in the impact ecosystem at home and abroad.
Kramer & Kania (2011) identify five conditions of collective success for collective impact, as follows
Common Agenda
Define primary goals based on a shared understanding of the problem that you want to solve together through the collective impact initiative, and develop a concrete action plan.
Shared Measurement
Monitor progress and share results using metrics agreed upon by all participants. This enables continuous learning, improvement, and accountability.
Mutually Reinforcing
Activities
Participating organisations play to their strengths and create synergies through coordination to complement and reinforce each other's actions.
Continuous Communication
There are significant differences in goals, incentives, language, etc. between the private sector(companies), the government sector(government/public agencies), and the social sector(non-profits/foundations/social enterprises, etc.).
To overcome this and build trust, active and ongoing communication is required, as well as rule-setting to ensure that decisions are made collectively and based on objective evidence of what is best to achieve the common goal, rather than being driven by one party's interests.
Backbone Support
A separate organisation is required to be dedicated to coordination, consisting of a project manager (responsible for planning, operations, and support), a data manager (data collection and performance reporting), and a facilitator (agenda setting, alignment, and conflict management). These individuals will spend a significant amount of time on the initiative and will be responsible for steering and coordinating the direction of the entire effort.
Kramer & Kania (2011) identify five conditions of collective success for collective impact, as follows
Common
Agenda
Define primary goals based on a shared understanding of the problem that you want to solve together through the collective impact initiative, and develop a concrete action plan.
Shared
Measurement
Monitor progress and share results using metrics agreed upon by all participants. This enables continuous learning, improvement, and accountability.
Mutually
Reinforcing
Activities
Participating organisations play to their strengths and create synergies through coordination to complement and reinforce each other's actions.
Continuous
Communication
There are significant differences in goals, incentives, language, etc. between the private sector (companies), the government sector(government /public agencies), and the social sector (non-profits/foundations/social enterprises, etc.).
To overcome this and build trust, active and ongoing communication is required, as well as rule-setting to ensure that decisions are made collectively and based on objective evidence of what is best to achieve the common goal, rather than being driven by one party's interests.
Backbone
Support
A separate organisation is required to be dedicated to coordination, consisting of a project manager (responsible for planning, operations, and support), a data manager (data collection and performance reporting), and a facilitator (agenda setting, alignment, and conflict management). These individuals will spend a significant amount of time on the initiative and will be responsible for steering and coordinating the direction of the entire effort.
In 2022, Kramer and Kania published the article 🔗"Centring Equity in Collective Impact" in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, reflecting on the achievements and limitations of collective impact initiatives that have been tried in different settings over the past decade, and highlighting the importance of orienting towards equity-based systems change and building knowledge-based learning communities.
