Resources for Collective Impact: From Common Goals to Uncommon Results

Collective Impact is one of those buzzwords that you often hear in our sector. Since the publication of the article Collective Impact in the winter 2011 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, this framework for successful cross-sector collaboration has been used to address a plethora of complex issues. But while many collective impact efforts have reported achieving positive results through their work, and have a personal, intuitive understanding of why this approach to collaboration has enabled positive progress in communities, there has not until recently been a methodologically rigorous study of the approach’s impact across multiple efforts on multiple social issues. 

In this session: 

• We learned how the collective impact framework brings people and sectors together in a structured process that can lead to positive outcomes;
• Heard what population level, systems change, and early outcomes were found across the participating initiatives;
• Explored how implementation of the collective impact approach contributed to outcomes, and;
• Learned how embedding an equity approach contributed to equity results within their work.