The imperative to work for change at a deeper more systemic level is arising in many areas, such as addressing the systemic roots of racial inequalities, or making large scale system transitions away from fossil fuels. Many recognize that we need to get beyond quick fixes and shift deeply ingrained patterns if we are to… Read more
Tag: Collaboration
Building a Shared Understanding of How Systems Work
I’ve just returned from the kick-off gathering of a collective impact initiative with the United Way of Greater New Bedford. A series of three community gatherings for input (as described in this blog) and other meetings with stakeholders led us to focus of how can we help families thrive, with a focus in one neighborhood. We… Read more
Collective Impact at a Community Scale: United Way of Greater New Bedford
United Way organizations around the country are reinventing the role they play in their communities from their traditional role of fundraising for social service agencies through workplace campaigns. As this paper, Charting a Course for Change describes, United Ways are serving as a community convener, engaging local partners (e.g., residents, businesses, local government, social service… Read more
Art of the Start: Strategic Questions to Build Focus and Engagement
As I write this, I am on my way to a gathering of practitioners who work on networks approaches for large-scale social change, sponsored by the Garfield Foundation. We’ll be discussing the “art of the start” – how to navigate the early stages of an initiative. This is timely, as lately I have seen some… Read more
Building Interaction and Networking into a Traditional Conference Format
Most of us know well the traditional conference format of a speaker or panel at the front of the room, rows of chairs, speakers offering prepared remarks with Powerpoint slides, followed by some Q&A with the audience. Interest is growing in ways to organize conferences that enable more interaction, connections, and learning among the participants. As… Read more
Open Sourcing Social Change
Most philanthropic work for social change is focused on investing grants in organizations as the unit of getting work done. The challenge is that for many issues and places, multiple foundations and/or government are investing in organizations pursuing disconnected initiatives, leading to silos that don’t talk to each other and competing organizations working in the… Read more
The Better Alternative Not on the Table
Last fall, I was driving and heard a snippet of a news story that has stayed with me. I was listening to a reporter in Syria talking about the opinions of “people on the street” in Damascus amidst this civil war. She said that they are faced with the choice of the brutal dictator Assad… Read more
The Art of Participatory Leadership
I had the opportunity to participate in a gathering called The Art of Participatory Leadership, which is defined as “an intensive 3-day event where you experience and practice a set of simple, yet powerful, processes for building community, facilitating powerful conversations, building strong partnerships, and leading change.” While I have experienced several of the approaches… Read more
Invest in the Field
One of the potential benefits of working in a network is the capacity to learn together quicker. Harold Jarche calls this “social learning” – the idea that learning and work happen as interconnected groups (e.g., networks.) In times of rapid change, we need information and feedback about innovations and what works and doesn’t to flow… Read more
Networks for Systems Change – Five Stories
The scale of complex systems we are working to change is much larger than one organization. Collaborative networks are emerging as a new way to organize work at a larger scale and create collective impact. We have found the best way to learn about these approaches is to explore stories of leading examples, as they… Read more