Set

Once you are ready to build a coalition, what do you need to do to actually make it happen? There are key building blocks that coalitions need in order to find success. It is important to give due diligence to setting the stage so that your coalition can be effective and efficient.

 Several questions addressed in this section include:

• How do you create a shared purpose and common goals?

• What are the essential structures, processes, and people that need to be in place to drive success?

• How do you develop a coalition that can demonstrate its value?

• How do you ensure the trust, accountability,
  and transparency required for coalition members to work effectively together?

Setting a Frame

Just like individual organizations, agencies working together in coalition must define: a shared purpose, which includes identifying a community-level problem which the coalition seeks to impact, a common vision towards which the coalition is striving, a mission stating how the coalition plans to achieve that vision and specific, measurable, goals that specify how that mission will be achieved.  

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• Community-Level Impact

  The community-level, truly collective impact you are ultimately trying to achieve, often identified via some type of needs assessment, is the change you are seeking to make through coordinated coalition action. Community-level impact is usually reflected by public health data. These data may be something that the coalition chooses to track over time in a visual dashboard of some kind.

  When thinking about making community-level impact, “moving the dial”, or eliminating a problem, it is therefore critical to measure the impact most immediately and directly related to the mission and goals identified for the coalition.    Read More

• Vision

  Once you have a clear understanding of the problem everyone is coming together to address, it is important to envision what the world would look like if the problem were solved: the long distance, future reality that is just out of reach. This will become your coalition’s vision statement. The best vision statements are short, to the point, and memorable. If well-written, vision statements can become the slogan or guiding statement for the work of the coalition.   Read More

• Mission

  There are several ways to address a problem. Fortunately, most communities have many dedicated organizations tackling community challenges from multiple angles. When a group of organizations comes together in a coalition to collaborate so that the sum of their collective efforts can be larger than its parts, real change can happen. It is essential, however, that the coalition adds value beyond what the partner organizations can do on their own. The mission statement of the coalition should succinctly summarize the way the coalition is tackling the problem.    Read More

• Goals

  Goals articulate how the coalition intends to meet its mission. They should include reference to what community-level impact the coalition expects to achieve when the goal is reached. In other words, goals broadly state which activities are expected to lead to which specific outcomes. Goals may be thought of as distinct program areas or strategies used to implement the various parts of the mission to create community-level impact.    Read More

Planning for Impact

When the rubber hits the road, it is all about impact. Everything the coalition sets out to do in their strategic plan, every hour spent in meetings, all the resources raised, assembled and created, all the relationships built and nurtured and all the efforts of every coalition partner are aimed at moving toward the specific vision by realizing IMPACT as outlined by the mission and goals.

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• Why Data Feels Hard

  Evaluation is the term most often used to describe the process of measuring impact. It is often the last thing that gets done and the first thing to be dropped when resources are stretched. Once all the governance, funding, strategic planning and staff issues have been resolved, assuming there are any energy and resources left, a volunteer data committee is often charged with figuring out how to measure impact. The data committee generates a miscellany of data that is put together into an Annual Report, news bites and potential donor brochures (e.g. the Sea Shell Collage method). By measuring impact in this way, the overall, big picture story (e.g. the Mosaic method) about what is being done and why it matters is often lost or obscured.    Read More

• Theory of Change

  Theory of Change is used to describe why you think what you do will have an impact. Theory of Change is often requested by funders as a way to get applicants to describe why what they do is important. A Theory of Change is similar to Setting a Frame, described in this Roadmap, and essentially makes a case for why what you do is expected to make a meaningful impact.

  A Theory of Change states what effect your strategy (or activities) will have on the people served and how they will use what they get from you to improve their lives.    Read More

• Logic Models

  Logic Models are often requested by funders so that they can understand specifically what their funding is being used to achieve. They want to know: what is going in to programming (inputs), what the programming is (activities), what is coming out of programming (outputs) and to what end (outcomes). Logic Models help funders make a judgement about whether funding the inputs and activities is worth the value of the outputs and outcomes.    Read More

• Strategic Impact Map™

  The Strategic Impact Map® is a tool which uses simple, clear language relevant to organizations, to integrate Logic Models, Theory of Change and organizational strategic planning. A Strategic Impact Map® is used to communicate organizational impact, as well as to guide data collection, focus evaluation, structure strategic planning and promote discussion.   Read More

• Keys to Maximizing Your Data

  Because collecting data is hard, and requires a good bit of resources, you can save time and money by being focused and efficient from the beginning. The following sections provide guidance in how to make the most of your evaluation efforts.    Read More

Harnessing Resources

Now that you have set your strategy and created a coordinated evaluation plan, a coalition seeking collective impact should commit to the following actions in order to launch and thrive: focus on governance, adopt systems leadership and plan for resources. This section of the Roadmap outlines key issues in developing each.

• Focus On Governance

  What is governance? Governance is a function of leadership. It is the way in which leaders, whether co-chairs, steering committees, advisory councils or boards, operate to ensure that a coalition is both efficient and effective. In the coalition context, governance is a tool used to structure relationships among multiple stakeholders (from coalition partners, to funders, to interested agencies) for maximum success. Highlighted below are three key governance components that can make your coalition function with maximum impact: dedicated capacity, an accountability structure and engaged partners.   Read More

• Commit To Systems Leadership

  Cultivating leadership may well be the most critical component to the success of any collaboration. If you do not already have leaders in place, it is important to identify key actors who can serve as leaders. With foresight and a bit of luck, you will be able to cultivate more than one coalition leader. Further, those who become leaders will advance the coalition’s strategy using their different and complimentary skill sets. Beyond administrative support, coalitions need leaders who operate with a big-picture, systems mindset.  Read More

• Plan For Resources

  Early on, a coalition should assess what financial resources are needed to support coalition infrastructure and activities, develop a budget and, when needed, create a plan to raise funds to fuel the work. In many cases, coalitions must source new philanthropic support, beyond the funding, expertise and networks that individual organizations develop through their own philanthropic partnerships, in order to have community-level impact. This can be challenging to navigate in an already competitive philanthropy environment, but can often present an opportunity to raise new funds for the problem that individual agencies, on their own, would not be able to obtain or sustain. It also offers a unique opportunity for individual philanthropists to pool resources in concert with cross-sector funders – public and private – for greater community-wide investment and impact.   Read More

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For more information, tools or resources on collaboration, to find out more about our collaboration trainings or to schedule a collaboration consult for your coalition, please contact CNE’s Senior Membership Manager, Raquel Suarez.