Collective Impact

Networks for Social Impact in Education Series – Report 2: Equity and Empowerment in Education Networks

View the Resource By Michelle Shumate, Rong Wang, Katherine R. Cooper, Jack L. Harris, Shaun Doughtery, Joshua Miles, Anne-Marie Boyer, Zachary Gibson, Miranda Richardson, Hannah Kistler Do cross-sector networks make education inequity worse? This question has been the topic of significant debate in the sector, particularly around whether the collective impact model of crosssector network interaction is redeemable.1 In the years since this debate emerged, education coalitions across the United

Networks for Social Impact in Education Series – Report 1: Networks that Create a Social Impact

View the Resource By Michelle Shumate, Rong Wang, Katherine R. Cooper, Jack L. Harris, Shaun Doughtery, Joshua Miles, Anne-Marie Boyer, Zachary Gibson, Miranda Richardson, Hannah Kistler Consultants and foundations often tout collective impact as the best approach for organizations responding to social problems in their community. Organizations that function under the collective impact tenets, such as having shared metrics and goals, are said to have more significant community outcomes. This

Research Summary: Predicting Community Adoption of Collective Impact in the United States

By Brett Mayfield The collective impact model is increasingly common in the nonprofit sphere. Governments, nonprofits, and businesses partner to best handle resources and increase their social impact as they work toward common goals. At NNSI, our research focuses on these collaborative governance models, like collective impact in the nonprofit sector. This research primarily explores why particular interorganizational networks surface in a community, which consists of individual people, organizations, and

Predicting Community Adoption of Collective Impact in the United States: A National Scan

View the Resource By Anne-Marie Boyer, Katherine R. Cooper, Shaun M. Dougherty, Rong Wang, Michelle Shumate Collaborative governance research examines the role of individuals, organizations, and partnerships within a community to understand why particular interorganizational networks emerge. We take a different tact, arguing that communities adopt collaborative governance models based upon exposure to the models and the individual and organizational resources in a community. We conducted a web-based national-level scan

The Role of Convenors in Cross-Sector Collaborative Governance

View the Resource By Katherine R. Cooper, Rong Wang, Anne-Marie Boyer, Jack L. Harris, Joshua-Paul Miles, Michelle Shumate Collaborative networks in response to social problems are a common area of research, but questions of who manages these networks and how they organize cross-sector partners represent new challenges for nonprofit organizations and their partners. This study draws upon interview data from 26 community-based education coalitions across the United States in which

What’s the (Data-Use) Impact of Collective Impact on Nonprofits?

By: Anne-Marie Boyer We live in a society obsessed with numbers. In this day and age of big data, no longer are conversations around metrics and quantification limited to Silicon Valley or Wall Street. The social impact sector is also expected to legitimize and improve its efforts through strategies that involve iterative evaluation and assessment. Demands for smarter reporting and transparency from funders and community stakeholders alike can exacerbate these