What collaboration looks like

Talk without action is a waste of time and resources. Isolated activities or interventions result in more and more programs and more and more money needed to fund them. Perhaps it’s time to abandon individual agendas and siloed approaches for a collaborative approach to solving issues. What if we were to choose a long-term, coordinated solutions-based approach versus a temporary programmatic fix?

We know that no one organization or individual alone can solve our most significant social issues. It requires long-term commitment and cross-sector collaboration informed by lived experience to ensure needle-moving positive results. These desired results require more than talk. It requires a common agenda and a focused plan of ACTION with assigned accountability and shared measurement, not a plan with hundreds of strategies that dilute coordinated efforts and overwhelm participants.

At the Northern Illinois Center for Nonprofit Excellence (NICNE) Social Innovation and Collaboration Laboratory (CollabLab) we’re addressing vexing social issues (i.e. food insecurity, youth mental health, youth gun violence prevention, digital access and opportunities, building a culture of belonging, etc.) using a coordinated approach informed by collective impact that includes:

1. Gathering the change-makers by calling together people with interest, experience, and expertise.
2. Defining the problem and committing to evidence and fact-based decision making.
3. Co-creating solutions by agreeing on bold goals, universal metrics, and aligned activities and funding.
4. Sustaining a movement through a defined structure driving progress, sustained effort, and funding.

We’ve seen that multiple perspectives are necessary for broad engagement and best results. Differences become assets and leverage new resources, ideas, and experiences. Developing a new approach that co-creates solutions ensures more robust ideas, greater buy-in, and sustained results.

Nonprofits bring deep ties within the community that are built on trust with valuable knowledge of social issues and program delivery, experience in advocating for policy change, significant network connections, and awareness of funding streams.

Businesses have the capacity to provide funding and in-kind support. Their fresh perspective can bring innovative ideas, strategic approaches, and access to customers and markets.

Government, too, is a critical partner in cross-sector collaboration. They can influence policy change, leverage grants, access public data, and guide system-level change.

All sectors play a critical role as content experts, YET a crucial perspective often overlooked is that of context expert.

Engaging people with lived experience ensures “nothing about us without us.” We cannot adequately or permanently solve issues without hearing the voice of lived experience, acknowledging that individuals are the authorities in their own lives, and challenging the practice of making decisions for individuals versus making decisions with them. We often see that when we make decisions for individuals, the solutions imposed fail to address the true issues and perpetuate the problems. We must give agency, opportunity, and voice to people with lived experience, while using sector influence and authority to influence change and build a movement.

Like the dandelion that has gone to seed, we each must do our individual part to spread the seeds of change through a collective organized effort.

Together our community can solve any issue we choose if we move beyond talk and into collective, collaborative action.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Greater Rockford Chamber of Commerce.