By Sylvia Cheuy, Mark Cabaj, and Liz Weaver, Illustration: Hugo Herrera, Stanford Social Innovation Review, January 4, 2022
The collective impact framework has gained interest worldwide for mobilizing high-impact and lasting change on a broad array of complex social issues. As highlighted in this series, for the past decade, countless examples have validated the collective impact framework and deepened understandings of it as a field of practice. Looking ahead to the next decade, what’s next for collective impact?
One area of focus for the future is the need to forge better linkages across individual collective impact efforts to maximize their combined potential to catalyze systems change. In this context, “systems” refers to one or more larger societal systems that impact a problem or issue. These systems include federal and provincial or state policy, regulatory practices, philanthropic approaches, legal positions, organizational policies, and the adoption of promising practices. Collective impact initiatives that include systems change strategies demonstrate a capability to generate and scale solutions that successfully disrupt, and ultimately transform, the status quo.
The efforts of individual collective impact initiatives are strengthened when they are linked and loosely coordinated to advance systems change. This is much more likely to happen with the support of a unique form of intermediary organization known as a field catalyst.
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