Collective impact requires multiple organizations to look through the same lens for resources and innovations to address complex social problems. This allows for heightened vigilance where necessary resources and solutions that already exist can be recognized. Under these conditions of complexity, predetermined solutions rarely succeed and emergent solutions are more likely to develop from the interactions of participants following shared rules of engagement. When supported by a backbone and shared measurement, the transparency and collective learning that results from organizations working together in this way leads to ongoing identification of emerging opportunities.
Collective impact requires multiple organizations to look through the same lens for resources and innovations to address complex social problems. This allows for heightened vigilance where necessary resources and solutions that already exist can be recognized. Under these conditions of complexity, predetermined solutions rarely succeed and emergent solutions are more likely to develop from the interactions of participants following shared rules of engagement. When supported by a backbone and shared measurement, the transparency and collective learning that results from organizations working together in this way leads to ongoing identification of emerging opportunities.
Collective impact requires multiple organizations to look through the same lens for resources and innovations to address complex social problems. This allows for heightened vigilance where necessary resources and solutions that already exist can be recognized. Under these conditions of complexity, predetermined solutions rarely succeed and emergent solutions are more likely to develop from the interactions of participants following shared rules of engagement. When supported by a backbone and shared measurement, the transparency and collective learning that results from organizations working together in this way leads to ongoing identification of emerging opportunities.
Collective impact requires multiple organizations to look through the same lens for resources and innovations to address complex social problems. This allows for heightened vigilance where necessary resources and solutions that already exist can be recognized. Under these conditions of complexity, predetermined solutions rarely succeed and emergent solutions are more likely to develop from the interactions of participants following shared rules of engagement. When supported by a backbone and shared measurement, the transparency and collective learning that results from organizations working together in this way leads to ongoing identification of emerging opportunities.
The power of collective impact lies in the Necessary resources and innovations often already exist but
heightened vigilance that comes from have not yet been recognized, learning is continuous, and multiple organizations looking for resources adoption happens simultaneously and innovations through the same lens,
Shift requires a different model of strategic philanthropy in which grants
support processes to determine common outcomes and rules for The process and results of collective impact interaction that lead to the development of emergent solutions, rather are emergent rather than predetermined than just funding the solutions themselves
Issues such as poverty, health,
Power of Collective Impact education, involve many 'We live in a complex world, we often don’t different interdependent actors and know what is going on, and we won’t be able factors. to understand its complexity unless we spend more time not knowing… Curiosity is what Under these conditions of Mindset and Curiosity we need' (Wheatley, M). complexity, predetermined solutions rarely succeed.
Embracing Emergence Complexity and Emergence
A key tenet of addressing complex problems is to focus When supported by an effective backbone and on creating effective shared measurement system, the cascading levels rules for interaction. of collaboration creates a high degree of transparency among all organizations and levels Collective Learning and Action involved in the work
Taken from the field of complexity science, “emergence” is a term that is used to Collective Vigilance describe events that are unpredictable, which seem to result from the interactions between elements, and which no one organization or individual can control. The process of evolution exemplifies emergence.
Efforts to identify improvements can be helped by
a “second set of eyes” focused on identifying emergent patterns Ongoing vigilance of multiple organizations with a shared intention, operating under the rules for interaction of the collective impact structure, empowered all stakeholders together—flexibly and quickly—to see and act on emerging opportunities
