The Philanthropist Publishes Innoweave Article on Collective Impact!

July 14, 2014

One of the innovative approaches that Innoweave added last year was the new and exciting Collective Impact module. This approach helps organizations work together to address major challenges and fundamentally change population level outcomes. By creating shared multi sector understanding of the problem, a common vision and an action plan with shared measurements and reinforcing activities, Collective Impact is a new way to help communities solve complex problems that they had been trying to fix for years.

The latest issue of The Philanthropist (click here) delves into this new approach and seeks to answer the question as to whether and how Collective Impact is different from previous collaborative approaches. This edition includes articles from Innoweave partners Liz Weaver of Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement and Mark Cabaj of Here2There as well as Lyse Brunet, Hilary Pearson of Philanthropic Foundations Canada, Cathy Mann, and many others. As part of this edition, Innoweave was asked to provide an article outlining our experience with Collective Impact and why we felt it important to support 52 groups made up of over 210 organizations that are exploring and implementing Collective impact approaches.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

“Many organizations understand the importance of collaborating with others to reach better outcomes, but can “collaboration” alone tackle these big, complex issues? A new Innoweave module is helping organizations take collaboration further by engaging in Collective Impact.

If you’ve ever driven a vehicle with a child in the back asking, ‘Are we there yet?’ over and over, you’re familiar with how painstakingly slow progress on complex issues like poverty, crime reduction, or obesity can be.”

To read the article in its entirety, including three case studies of successful Collective Impact initiatives in Canada, please click the following link:

http://www.thephilanthropist.ca/index.php/phil/issue/current

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