Funding Trend Alert: Collective Impact
April 8, 2013
Have you heard the buzz about collective impact? It's the practice of using community partnerships to bring about large-scale change on complex social issues affecting communities. This idea is taking the nonprofit world by storm, with success found across sectors in critical areas like education, healthcare and community development. Partnerships open the door to an abundance of resources, which results in an even greater community impact. Funders at the local, state and national level are also taking note and are looking at how this practice relates to their grantmaking efforts.
On March 20, 2013, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a longtime friend of public broadcasting, hosted a webinar to discuss the importance of collective impact in the agency's Arts Education priorities and goals. Featured presenter John Kania, Managing Director at FSG, a social impact consulting firm, highlighted the success that collective impact has had across disciplines and provided tips and suggestions for how organizations can begin developing or strengthening their collaborative strategies.
As trusted community organizations, public broadcasting stations are well positioned to communicate and address a community's needs and concerns in a way that other organizations cannot. Ready To Learn and American Graduate are just two of the many examples of stations' effective use of collaboration to make a significant impact on important community issues.
Collaborations are already an important factor of many federal and foundation grant applications, and as news of collective impact continues to spread, more funders are expected to follow the trend. Be sure to watch the archive of NEA's Collective Impact webinar for tips on building long-term partnership strategies in your community. You can access additional materials on collective impact through the FSG website.
FSG is no stranger to the Grant Center and has previously provided their services and expertise. Watch the Grant Center's May 2012 webinar Strategies for Grantseeking Success: Planning for Impact to hear from FSG representatives about how best to plan, measure and demonstrate impact.
