Outcomes are Like Eels: Slippery but Catchable
Written by Tim Buckley, December 2023
“It takes a village,” had its day as a useful slogan. Taking its place in recent years is the term “collective impact”. Simply put, collective impact is what happens when communities bring people together in an organized way to achieve social change that improves life for all. As populations grow, and as our awareness of the complexity of life’s great big web expands, the value of collective impact networks grows ever more crucial.
Here are some elements that define collective impact, a system that:
Fosters trust and respect
Features connected support organizations that represent all participants
Builds equity leadership and accountability
Allows for adaptive power-sharing within the collective
Implements a common agenda with mutually reinforcing activities
Develops programs that are customizable for local needs
Uses shared strategies and data that measures performance outcomes.
Diagraming a collective impact network, you end up with an organization chart that looks more like a cat’s cradle than a pyramid.
CBEL is part of a collective impact system in Salem and Keizer. In fact, CBEL helps support three nonprofit organizations that are part of a larger, multi-county collective impact initiative. In order that we collectively know whether our combined efforts are working, it’s important to have reliable data. It’s what we refer to as “Results Based Accountability.”
CBEL’s purpose is:
That every child in Salem and Keizer area grow up in a safe, stable and nurturing home and,
That they all enjoy good health, succeed in school, and go on in life to become financially self-sufficient.
The three nonprofit organizations CBEL helps support help fulfill that purpose:
Each of those organizations is part of an even larger web that includes other communities and counties. Within the Salem and Keizer area, working directly with our three Neighborhood Family Councils, with specific families and specific elementary schools, these initiatives and their collective impact partners are making a difference.
Like an octopus, reporting results out of such a complex system is made easier when all the partners have the same outcome objectives and methods. It also helps for everybody to have software that can connect, which makes case management easier and more transparent. Likewise, it’s helpful that when a family or individual moves from one part of the collective to another, that the network employs overlapping case management, so that the client doesn’t experience a gap in service delivery.
Each of the three nonprofits CBEL supports can point to improvements in their effectiveness because of the collaboration between them. But it’s still a work in progress to present a shared set of data points that suggests that CBEL’s purpose has been met.
In the meantime, however, there is some evidence that the Collective Impact strategy is paying off:
Civic participation in the Hallman-Northgate, Kennedy and Highland neighborhood has skyrocketed.
Neighbors in the Hallman-Northgate area responded this year to a survey question, saying that their greatest pride is Northgate Park, which they have made a priority for three years. When they first organized, survey data said that the park was their greatest headache and wasn’t safe.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that families needing support services are finding it easier to navigate from provider to provider without duplication.
Dozens of neighborhood parents have been trained in Ready for Kindergarten classes and have become their children’s first teacher of reading, literacy and social behavior. Those parents report improved family relationships and, importantly, that the children are excelling in school.
During the pandemic, while homelessness statistics worsened citywide, data collected by the neighborhood family councils said that the risk of homelessness in their area had declined significantly. This is due to a greater awareness of each other’s needs and having the ability to support each other more effectively.
The Hallman neighborhood had lobbied for decades for a bathroom facility at Northgate Park. With the added muscle and advocacy provided by the Hallman Neighborhood Family Council (and CBEL’s collective effort), a million-dollar restroom facility will be built in 2024.
While these are significant changes, it’s important to note that CBEL is working to have more hard data to report in the next year. Results Based Accountability is more than a string of anecdotes. Every organization needs data to justify its existence, and to qualify for sustainable, or increased, funding. It’s clear that a collective impact strategy has the capacity to generate that kind of data, which will inform and adjust as the need evolves.
While slippery to catch, collective impact outcomes are definitely worth catching, and CBEL is putting “all hands on deck” to accomplish that goal.