A forum highlighting a comprehensive initiative to improve the lives of families and children by aligning and coordinating support in Kent County was held on Tuesday at the Eberhard Center.
The purpose of the Kent County Collective Impact Community Forum was to introduce the concept of the Collective Impact approach, share the reasons why the community needs to take action, and gather feedback on what the future action steps should be.
The forum’s diverse crowd of more than 200 was comprised of individuals from the community, nonprofit organizations, foundations, educational institutions, businesses, and government officials, including Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell.
Earlier this year, members from the Kent County Family and Children’s Coordinating Council (KCFCCC) met with consultants from FSG, an organization that helps communities discover better ways to solve social problems.
The featured speaker for Tuesday’s forum, FSG Managing Director John Kania, co-wrote
Collective Impact and
Channeling Change: Making Collective Impact Work. He also acts as an educator and advocate for the Collective Impact approach and speaks around the country.
The idea behind Collective Impact, according to Kania, is that “no single organization is responsible for any major social problem, nor can any single organization cure it.”
Kania presents the idea that our traditional approaches are not working for several reasons: funders usually give money to individual grantees and these organizations often work separately and compete for funds; and, at the same time, corporations and local governments are disconnected from the foundations and nonprofits.
With a Collective Impact approach, organizations are encouraged to interact with one another, coordinate actions, and share lessons learned. Collective Impact works best when there is cross-sector alignment in solving social problems, collaboration, and agreement on the best way to measure outcomes.
Matthew VanZetten from the Kent County Administrator’s Office says that in order for Collective Impact to be successful, “people have to own this and want to make change happen.”
As a result of the meetings with FSG, KCFCCC spearheaded a public and private collaboration entitled the Kent County Collective Impact Initiative for Children and Families (KCCIICF). A steering committee was then developed to drive the effort. It’s comprised of 21 community leaders across all sectors and co-chaired by Lynne Ferrell of the Frey Foundation and Fred Keller, Chairman and CEO of Cascade Engineering.
If the full name of the Collective Impact initiative seems like a mouthful to you, don’t worry; VanZetten assures Tuesday’s forum audience, “We will be renaming this at some point.”
The Collective Impact Steering Committee has met three times so far and they’re now at the halfway point of their planning timeline. Tuesday’s forum is the first opportunity the committee has had to share its initial conversations and recurrent themes. The feedback from the forum will help them finalize a common agenda within the next few months.
President of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation and Steering Committee member Diana Sieger says the desired outcome is to “stand shoulder to shoulder once we make our final decisions.”
Sieger admits that community work is often “messy.”
“Community work is nonlinear,” she says. “Sometimes you go into a meeting thinking you’re going to come out with something, and instead you come out with a bag of chips.”
But with poverty rates in Kent County growing and racial disparities increasing, the current approach doesn’t seem to be working very well and something needs to be done. The Collective Impact initiative seeks to change these disturbing trends and develop a framework on how the community can rally around agreed upon goals and begin making the necessary changes.
After the forum’s main presentations by Kania and Steering Committee members, participants were asked to gather in six smaller breakout groups and tasked with answering three questions:
- Why is this effort important?
- What’s missing around the current approach?
- How should the community be engaged?
Each group’s answers were shared with the larger audience and it’s this information that will help guide the Steering Committee in developing a strategy, or the common agenda, going forward. Key indicators to measure the impact this approach will have on the wellbeing of children and their families will also be developed. Plans are to share the information with the public by the first of the year.
George Grant, Jr., Steering Committee member and dean at Grand Valley State University says the Collective Impact initiative is a “way to bring diverse ideas together and figure out best practices.”
“The key is to empower families,” he says.
To find out more about the
Collective Impact approach, visit FSG online.
Sources: Matthew VanZetten, Kent County Administrator’s Office, and Collective Impact Steering Committee members Diana Sieger, President of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, and George Grant, Jr., Dean at Grand Valley State University’s College of Community and Public Service
Writer: Heidi Stukkie, Do Good Editor