If achieving community social impact goals were as simple as having creative ideas, collaborating with strategic partners, developing a theory of change, mapping out an implementation plan and managing that plan to success, I am pretty sure all the growing needs in our communities would soon be addressed. But we all know, no one organization can solve issues like poverty and social change is complex.
Many nonprofits in Canada are working on improving jobs and wages, tackling food or housing insecurity or access to healthcare, education or affordable childcare. And communities are coming together to collaborate on developing a theory of change and working towards common outcomes.
This enables teams to acknowledge multiple factors that will contribute to changes and what attributes will be assigned to activities or intervention factors. In enabling large-scale change, very few issues that matter have simple root causes. The key to achieving collective impact goals is also learning and adapting as teams move toward a goal. Learning together as a community provides the opportunity to better understand the issue being addressed and the possible solutions to deploy. And underpinning all this work is the need for clear and consistent communications. Here are three key things teams will need to discuss:
Step 1: Clear Impact Goals
Collaborating means organizations coming together to ask themselves:
- What is the shared community issue that requires better outcomes?
- What are the systemic barriers facing your community / participants?
- How could a common community agenda improve our theory of change models?
- How could a common community agenda change impact / outcomes for our community / participants / stakeholders?
Setting clear goals will also provide common measurements so we know what data to gather / share. We need to be able to quantify how many people have improved life situations because of our work. If we are for example working on causes of poverty, we need to identify how many people have secured jobs , are now working more hours each week, or are now earning a livable wage.
Step 2: Critical Feedback Systems
To learn collectively, you need continuous communications and shared community feedback systems. Too often communication plans do not resource adequately feedback loops. We need to be asking questions like “Are people living better lives because of our work?” Or “What are we learning about what is or isn’t working to help move us toward our desired change?”. This can also help identify any gaps in programs or services that require bridging to be more effective. In this way, partners can improve how they link programs and services together so that they are working more effectively.
And we can’t forget those helping fund the work. We also need to ask “What questions do you have about our work that you would like us to answer in the impact evaluation?” Resourcing these regular feedback loops also strengthens the community’s commitment to the collaborative work and facilitates learning and adapting / changing together.
Step 3: Sustainable systemic change
In addition to our individual actions through programs and services, a key benefit of collective impact goals are the ability to measure the systemic changes influenced by our collective efforts. Have we changed laws, policies, practices – at a federal, provincial, municipal, community or individual business level?
As communication experts, we have been able to contribute to ensure these community conversations are strategic, well organized and ongoing. We help by facilitating a place for a natural and continuous cycle of creative thinking, planning, and doing. These are the forums where a collaborative team can adapt and change course.
Ar you working as part of a team working towards collective impact? We would love to connect to chat about the experiences you have had working towards common outcomes.