Like a good book and a rainy day, cookies and milk, road trips and your best playlist, some things are just better together. Why? Because they are able to bring out the best in their partners. It’s often the same in systems change work: when we strategically partner with each other, the whole is better …
Tag Archives: collaboration
Healthy Schools Collective Impact: Reaching the Bold Goal, Together
One of the things that has become clear in our work with systems change broadly and collective impact specifically is that no one program or organization can address large-scale issues on its own. Put another way, our impact goes further when we work together toward a common agenda. Over the past nine months, Spark has …
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Evaluating Collaboration in Place-based Initiatives: Can it Move the Needle?
On October 5th and 6th, I will have the opportunity to facilitate a session on how evaluation can help stakeholders understand and strengthen cross-sector partnerships and collaboration more broadly at the Art & Science of Place-Based Evaluation. The conference is hosted by Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions, and …
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What Does Systems Building Really Mean?
Systems building. Partnerships. Collaboration. These are commonly-used words in the world of social change. They come from the realization that nothing exists in a vacuum – even nature’s most basic systems thrive on diversity and interconnectedness – but what does it really mean? And what does it look like on the ground? Over the past …
Working with the Faith Community to Spark Social Change
This month, we’ve looked at how to use the private sector to scale change. Now I want to shift the focus outside of the public/private realm and look at the role other groups can plan in creating meaningful change: specifically, the role the faith community can play in bringing attention to and energizing people around …
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Cross-sector Collaboration Lessons Learned: Implementing a Powerful Tool for Social Change
I was fortunate to spend the last week with 23 other cross-sector leaders who are doing amazing things – everything from changing how PepsiCo sources its fruits in order to benefit local economies and increase the nutritional content of their drinks, to scaling an evidence-based afterschool program throughout the country, to developing and disseminating an …
Leaving the Abstract Behind: What Collective Impact Really Means
From reducing infant mortality to addressing climate change, Collective Impact work seems to be everywhere these days. At Spark, we’ve been excited to get involved with Collective Impact efforts at all levels, from facilitating the planning process to being the backbone to providing evaluation support early in initiatives and in the later years as well. …
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