Achieving Synergy With Collaborative Problem Solving: The Value of System Analysis

Abstract

Key Points· Collaborative problem solving has a long and important tradition in philanthropy. While there are notable success stories, it is clear that large-scale impact does not occur by simply bringing various stakeholders together around a common agenda and then offering them funding for planning and implementation.· One of the most critical ingredients is a high-leverage strategy, which in turn requires a coherent understanding of the system that surrounds the problem.· Reclaiming Futures, a national initiative aimed at promoting juvenile-justice reform at the local level, explicitly promotes system-level problem-solving by offering a conceptual framework that each site uses to identify gaps in how court-involved youth are served by different agencies.· This article evaluates six North Carolina sites that have adopted the Reclaiming Futures model. These sites can point to improvements in screening court-adjudicated youth for substance issues and in moving affected youth into assessment and treatment. These changes, at least in part, are the result of agencies that now share a common view of the larger system that affects young people with substance-abuse issues.

Getting to Collective Impact: How Funders Can Contribute Over the Life Course of the Work

“…Solving an entrenched social, economic, or health problem will invariably require a fundamental change to the system surrounding that problem (Foster-Fishman, Nowell, & Yang, 2007). Systems change, in turn, requires that the participating organizations move beyond coordination of activities and carry out a collective strategy that disrupts the status quo (Easterling, Arnold, Jones, & Smart, 2013). Stage 4 is when the network carries out its strategic analysis and develops that game-changing strategy.…”

Evaluating Collective Impact Initiatives: A Systematic Scoping Review

“…Based on their experience with evaluating CI, the included study authors made recommendations for CI evaluation best practices (see Table 3). The most frequently noted recommendations were related to planning the evaluation ( n = 16; e.g., Easterling, Mayfield Arnold, Jones, & Smart, 2013). These included the use of mixed methods for richer data, involving partners in evaluation development, understanding organizational funding models to use as a basis for developing measures, utilizing a developmental evaluation approach for co-learning, using an external evaluator, and a recommendation for funders to provide technical assistance to support CI evaluation.…”

“…CI evaluation is essential to improve processes and make adaptations to meet the needs of the target population. Identifying channels to communicate evaluation results in a relevant, nontechnical manner is important to ensure the audience understands findings and can utilize them in a productive way (e.g., strategic thinking and future planning; Easterling et al, 2013; Jenkins et al, 2020). Furthermore, transparency in terms of evaluation is key for trust building and helps in identifying what can reasonably be achieved within a given timeframe.…”

Collective action in social entrepreneurial ventures: the role of shared meaning

“…The willingness to share information is for the good of the partners and is a major distinguishing characteristic of collaboration (Thomson and Perry, 2006;Sandmann and Kliewer, 2012). Sharing information in collaboration is seen in terms of increasing partners' understanding of the problem they all seek to address (Kania and Kramer, 2015;Easterling et al, 2010). Partners need time to see that their interests are being taken care of and are treated fairly and that decisions will be taken objectively and the best solution to the problem without favouring the priorities of one organisation over another (Henley-Brown, Kania and Kramer, 2013).…”