Community Voice Archives - Next Stage - Social Impact Services

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It got on my radar fairly early in my consulting career as the result of a groundbreaking article in 2011 on the concept of collective impact, “the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem.” It was a concept that really spoke to me.

Almost from the beginning of my social good journey, I have been drawn to the concept of collaboration. You only have to do this work for a short time to realize that most institutions function in silos of their own making. And yet, that is not how the world works. The people an organization aims to serve are complex and are surrounded by a number of influences and inputs. It always seemed to me that the solutions offered to create positive social outcomes should be similarly nuanced and overlapping.

Finding collective impact was like discovering the answer to a question that hadn’t yet been asked. I was immediately intrigued.

Bumps Along the Road

Depending on who you ask, you will get varied feedback on the effectiveness of the collective impact model. Some, like myself, really believe in it as a model – what is on paper is logical and a big improvement over anything that came before it. But for those who have actually tried to implement it as a strategy, reviews are mixed.

Typical criticisms include the lack of funding to sustain the model, the difficulty in sustaining partner buy-in, the challenge of turnover in leadership, and the longitudinal nature of outcomes in a world that rewards near-term successes. They are all fair criticisms. Any collaborative effort is going to face similar challenges.

While there are still devotees out there, we have witnessed a fair amount of abandoning the framework altogether when we have no real viable alternatives. We believe it is primarily a challenge of implementation. The model itself is a badly needed, metric-driven framework that can work if the right conditions are in place.

Collective Impact Improved

Next Stage reframed its mission at the beginning of the year to focus on “building belonging at the intersection of social good.” We believe that the only way forward is together. To make the collective impact model work more effectively, we’d offer the following improvements:

Service Providers as Backbone Organizations – In another recent blog, we outline the idea of service providers as advocacy organizations, and that concept holds true here as well. Too often, collective impact is embedded in organizations designed for the expressed purpose of advancing collective impact. These “catalyst, conduit and convener” organizations are meant to be a clearinghouse for collaboration, where the mission is the collective impact effort itself.

The problem with that is one of trust. These are often organizations launched by funding sources, with new entrants to the community recruited as staff who lack local credibility to lead the efforts they are tasked with advancing. They are also disconnected with the frontlines of social good where the important learnings live (if this intrigues you, check out our webinar series on community voice).

We think a better model is to embed collaboration management within a service-providing organization. Funders would be shocked, thinking that this somehow distracts an organization from its core mission, but we disagree. Who better to lead a collaborative effort than an organization that is already trusted by other service providers and the people the collaborative aims to impact in the first place. Yes, nonprofits can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time. It just takes investment and professional development to accomplish, but is far more likely to be successful than inventing a new agency out of thin air.

Start (and Continue) with Social Cohesion – We truly love the primary tools of collective impact efforts – a common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication and, yes, backbone organizations. But we think there is a big missing piece – the building of trust.

Most collective impact efforts fall down not because of the lack of infrastructure (that’s in fact what we think the model does exceptionally well), but because of lack of buy-in by the important partners. Our company has been brought into collective impact efforts half-way through completion that have hit a wall, and that barrier is almost always a breakdown in buy-in.

One reason for this is that these efforts spend too little time building social cohesion with participating leaders. Much more than an ice-breaker at the start of each meeting, social cohesion is built over time and must be nurtured throughout. If we think of trust as a form of capital (trust capital), then we can measure it and use it as a metric alongside the other important measurements guiding collective impact. We think this is an area where new tools are needed that can support these aims.

Invite the Broader Community – Another feature we think is underutilized in collective impact efforts is the use of large stakeholder groups. Continuous communication is one of the critical pillars of the model, but it is most often viewed as an insular effort. Engaging a larger audience creates opportunities for data capture that provide important insights and learnings for the collaborative effort.

So often, the branded collective impact effort is only known among insiders within a community’s social good sector. We think this is a missed opportunity. If we truly believe in community voice and “no decisions about us, without us” then including not only community based organizations but also the people a collaborative aims to serve is the only way to accomplish this.

The building and sustaining of a large stakeholder group can serve as a needed, always-on focus group for the immediate testing of ideas surfaced by the collective impact effort. But to make that work, the community must understand the aims of the collective impact effort and feel truly a part of its success.

Next Stage’s Cultivate Impact®

Next Stage has launched a digital collaboration management and community of practice platform called Cultivate Impact. Powered by our methodologies of social cohesion-building, the platform can serve collective impact efforts in realizing continuous communication aims that yield increased buy-in and trust.

In 2024, we are piloting the platform with a number of partners including grantmakers, collective impact initiatives and learning communities. If you’d like to learn more, get in touch.

On June 27, Next Stage will present its fifth and final webinar on the power of community voice, with this one focused on its essential role in advocacy (Sign up here!). Of all the topics covered as a part of the series thus far, this one holds special interest for Helen Hope Kimbrough and Josh Jacobson, the team that has been presenting this content over the last three months.

Advocacy is defined as public support for or recommendation of a particular cause or policy. Advocacy is also the opportunity to:

Present a case for support through methods of data-gathering, comparative analysis and trend research, and storytelling to inform the process
Build and cultivate relationships, engaging partners in the community, giving them action steps and tools to join the conversation
Make a clear case of what you hope to achieve, outlining funding support, resources and next steps to impact the community

It seems everywhere we look these days, the voices of people who are being left out of public discourse are finding opportunities to be heard – the very definition of community voice. Helen and Josh are excited to share their enthusiasm for the topic in today’s two-part blog.

Inspired by the Foot Soldiers of Change

by Helen Hope Kimbrough

In the Charlotte community, there has been a movement of advocacy stemming from social justice – the act of right-sizing access and opportunities that should exist for everyone, not just a select few.

If you’ve ever attended a public forum or civic meeting, there are so many individuals and organizations coming forth to present matters and concerns that pain residents in our community. For instance, a mom who needs an affordable place to live for herself and two young children in a safe area, a family that needs quality and affordable childcare to work to pay their bills, an aging senior who needs a selection of healthy food options that are better suited for his healthcare needs. The stories go on and on.

Fortunately, we have foot soldiers who are on the ground and ready to carry the mantle (and message) to get folks the help and support they need. They are trusted advocates amplifying their voices to make a difference in the lives of others with evidence, data, compassion, and resources.

A Community Organizing Renaissance

In preparation for our next webinar on Community Voice and Advocacy, Josh and I almost didn’t include it. Yet, the more we talked about the collective community voices and their ability to disrupt systems in thoughtful, consistent, and innovative ways, we were inspired to examine it further and feature it as a part of our webinar series as a deepened approach.

And what we’ve witnessed is how trusted advocates have built and cultivated relationships with community leaders, public officials, and individuals while being diligent in earmarking time to meet with city, county, and state officials, learn more about grant opportunities and financial investment, ask the tough questions, plan follow-up discussions, and educate supporters on ways to engage and participate in the process. Plus, they’ve optimized tools such as thought leadership, social media, convenings, and public meetings to get their message across, leveraging community voice and advocacy.

We are witnessing a renaissance in community organizing by service providers who are proximate to the need, channeling a powerful message of advocacy that is in turn leading to policy change. It inspires me personally. I look forward to sharing these stories during our webinar next week.

Tackling the Monster Upstream

by Josh Jacobson

As I talk about the changes at Next Stage of late, I find myself summoning the metaphor of “bailing babies from the river.” Health and human service providers often describe their intervention work in this way – of being on the banks of a rushing river, rescuing drowning children as they pass heading downstream.

One’s career can be defined in this way, with success measured in the number of individuals one has “saved” from the rushing river. It takes doing that for a while before even thinking to look upstream, where if you squint, you can see a monster who is dumping children in the river. But whereas there are many of you downstream to try to save those children, it appears there are few upstream where the monster is causing the crisis in the first place.

This is the analogy often presented about advocacy and systems change, and it was one I had heard many times before. The monster is depicted as “the system” that allows some sort of policy – either public or corporate – that creates a negative downstream impact. But I will admit, it took a decade of doing this work at Next Stage for it to sink in. And now I feel called to make the main thrust of my work systemic in nature. It is no longer sufficient to bask in the “warm fuzzy” of downstream victories.

Disruption vs Status Quo

I had a conversation with a colleague recently where I tried to explain how this has manifested in my life, and why I feel so drawn to systems work. For the person downstream, there comes a point where you begin to question whether you are actually contributing to the problem – if in “bailing babies from the river,” you are also maintaining a status quo that helps to shift attention away from the monster creating the problem in the first place. You know that it is a life worth saving, but if you continue in your work, will the situation ever get better?

The fact that I am struggling with this more than two decades into a career in social good only serves to highlight my privilege. For the community leaders at the frontlines of this work, this trade off is a daily struggle. It is why the shift toward service providers building expressions of advocacy has been such an amazing trend to observe. Who better to amplify the voices of the oppressed than those who have direct knowledge from providing them services?

It is a space where community voice is the fuel that powers the disruptive efforts that lead to change. Helen and I look forward to sharing how your organization can participate in the movement when we get together next week.

Did you hear? Next Stage has made webinars a big part of its work. This spring, Helen Hope Kimbrough and Josh Jacobson originated a five-part series on the role of community voice to inform all aspects of the social good business model including program development, marketing, human resources management and advocacy.

Did you miss the memo? Don’t fret! Helen and Josh are repeating the series live this summer. Check them out here and sign up for the second wave of the series running through September.

Community Voice