The challenges facing our local communities today seem almost overwhelming. These problems are too big for any single organization to solve. That is why OSU Extension is proud to have quality partners like you! As partners, we know that there is no single “silver bullet” that will solve our problems. Instead, a strong cross-sector infrastructure is needed to support collaboration, guide evidence-based decision-making, track community-level outcomes, scan existing resources and identify priority strategies. OSU Extension is working hard to bring together strategies and approaches to tackle our challenges.
Having well-researched, data-driven strategies is critical, but strategies alone cannot solve our problems. We also must adopt a new way of working by bringing nonprofits, governments, businesses, and the public together around a common agenda to create collective impact. Research has shown that a collective impact approach can produce largescale change in ways that other forms of collaboration and individual efforts have not.
Collective impact is a disciplined effort to bring together dozens of organizations of all types to establish a common vision and pursue evidence-based actions in mutually reinforcing ways. Successful collective impact initiatives share five key conditions, distinguishing them from other types of collaboration:
- 1. Common Agenda
- 2. Shared Measurement Systems
- 3. Mutually Reinforcing Activities
- 4. Continuous Communication
- 5. Backbone Support Organizations
As resources become increasingly scarce and needs become greater, OSU Extension is working to move our community forward through powerful collective effort.
Metropolitan Universities Journal, issue on Collective Impact Strategies