Achieving Collective ImpactTshikululu – GIBS

Serious Social Investing workshop

18 March 2011

A story…

US education in crisis 1950s – highest high school graduation

rates in the world

2010 – 18th among 24 industrialised

countries.

Billions of dollars and heroic efforts of

teachers and NGOs:

May have improved individual schools

No system-wide progress.

Bringing people together to improve results for every child, every step of the way, from cradle to career, in Cincinnati, Newport and Covington.

In 4 years

significant system-

wide improvements

across 34 of 53

indicators of

success

Why has strive made progress

where so many have failed?

300 leaders of diverse initiatives

Government, schools, business, CSOs

Realised fixing one point on the continuum

would make little difference unless all parts

improved.

And no single org. could do this alone.

Did NOT create a new program, or try to

raise more money.

The Strive Partnershipunites providers

around shared issues, goals, measurements and results

…then supports and strengthens strategies that work.

Focused the entire educational community on

A single set of goals

Progress measured in the same way.

15 different Student Success Networks

Develop success indicators

Discuss strategies

Learn from each other

Align efforts

Mars wants to improve the lives of 500 000

cocoa farmers in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana…

Mars Partnership for African

Cocoa Communities of

Tomorrow (iMPACT),

A coalition whose goal is to ensure future

supplies of cocoa and a socially and

environmentally responsible approach to

its production.

Collective Impact…the long term commitment of a group of

important actors from different sectors to a

common agenda for solving a specific social

problem.

More than just collaboration…

A centralised infrastructure, a dedicated staff,

structured relationships…

Common agenda, shared measurement,

continuous communication, aligned activities.

Large scale social change

comes from better cross-

sector coordination rather

than from the isolated

interventions of individual

organisations.

Isolated Impact 1.4 million CSOs and funders trying to invent

independent solutions to complex social

problems.

Individual successes but little system change.

Technical approaches – one day we’ll

‘discover the cure’.

Our tools do not help us.

Our habits do not help us.

Our systems do not help us.

Are we willing to do what's necessary

to give every child in South Africa a

chance to succeed?

… but perhaps its not a question of will, but a

question of how.

“Collaboration is where we fail. Despite

our best intentions, the improvements

needed … remain out of reach.”

1. A common agenda – and theory of change Shared vision of success

…and what is needed to achieve & sustain it.

2. Shared measurement systems Gather data and measure results against a few agreed

indicators of success.

Keeps work aligned, allows comparison, learning and

mutual accountability.

Feedback: Quality of relationships as performance

management and predictor of success.

Five conditions of

collective success

…continued

3. Mutually reinforcing activities Each actor does what it excels at in a way that

supports the actions of others.

Fit into overall theory of change and strategy

4. Continuous communication Developing trust a challenge

Regular meetings… takes time and care

Web tools

…continued

5. A backbone support organisation Separate organization and staff

Backbone roles: Project manager, data manager and

facilitator

The expectation that

collaboration can occur

without a supporting

infrastructure is the

most common reason

why it fails

Going local…

Our current reality Many excellent individual initiatives, but…

Competition among service providers - discourages

alignment, sharing and learning.

Fragmentary short-term ‘project’ interventions – rather than

holistic longer term developmental processes owned and

managed by schools themselves.

Success is measured in terms of outputs (e.g. number of

training workshops), rather than outcomes (real changes in

attitudes, behaviour, relationships, capabilities, conditions).

Difficult to match resources to needs: what’s available, what

quality etc.

More??

Imagine if, in each district, we had a

backbone organisation that…

For Schools:

Supports schools to plan and manage a holistic and integrated

long-term development strategy.

Provides access to resources and service providers.

Manages data collection – including comparative feedback on

service providers.

Facilitates long term relationships for sustainability.

Provides a framework for comparative, outcome-based monitoring

and evaluation – against their own benchmarks and against other

similar schools.

For Service Providers:

Facilitates communication, alignment and mutually reinforcing

interventions leading to more effective impact.

Promotes and supports shared impact and performance

measurement and reporting.

Provides access to resources and work opportunities.

Provides lower transaction costs for funding i.e. less time-

consuming fundraising and reporting to multiple donors; also long-

term engagements.

Facilitates sharing of resources, experience, learning and practice.

…a backbone organisation that…

…a backbone organisation that…

For Funders:

Maximises return on investment by enabling long term systemic

impact.

Manages impact and performance monitoring, assures the

alignment and quality of the interventions and reduces risk.

Facilitates long-term relationships with beneficiaries including

opportunities for staff volunteering, public reputation etc.

For Government:

Facilitates effective cross-sector partnerships.

Provides information on what works that can inform policy.

Provides access to skills and services to support schools.

Some new approaches,

methods and tools to foster

systemic and collective impact…

Theories of change

and theories of action:

Every school in (district)

is a safe, healthy, happy

and effective place of

learning and growing.

A shared vision of

success

Map the system of influence:

What actors influence this vision?

Success: healthy, happy etc.

School leader-

ship

Learners

School environment

Dept. of Ed

What should

each actor do

to contribute

optimally to

success?

Parents

Teachers

Community

CSOs

etc.

Relationship metrics are the

best available predictor of

outcomes and impact.

In business, customer loyalty

is a proven predictor of

growth, profits and share

value

Feedback systems and performance

management

Constituents

ResultsPerformance

Evidence of Results

Constituency Feedback

Evidence of performance

Feedback, when converted into data, provides high

quality data on performance, relationships and impact.

FBF performance scorecard:

Farmers1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Experience of the program

Number and scope of training

Trainers expertise and attitude

Applying new methods learned

Perceptions of changes

Overall Ratings

Comparison with last period

Turning feedback into data: Simple

performance scorecards

The pathway to action: careful comparison

incentivises listening and improving

This approach to presenting bills to customers of a public utility in California produced a dramatic reduction in energy use for the first time. Comparison is the key to getting folks to act on metrics.

Thank you!

Andre@

KeystoneAccountability.org