Collective Action - challenges and opportunities

This is one of many graphics created by the Tutor/Mentor Connection and Cabrini Connections to show the role of a tutor/mentor program in connecting many people for many years to achieve a result we all want. See more like this in the Tutor/Mentor Institute site.

We've never had much money to build this organization and share our ideas with the powers that be in Chicago, yet what we are trying to do is critically important as the article below illustrates.

This introduction was received in my email today.

In the current issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, Collective Impact authors John Kania and Mark Kramer from FSG write that collective impact happens when a group of cross-sector actors commit to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem and agree to each be accountable to a single overarching goal.

Successful collective impact initiatives involve a centralized infrastructure, a dedicated staff, and a structured process that leads to a common agenda, shared measurement, continuous communication, and mutually reinforcing activities among all participants, often organized and led by a 'backbone' organization.

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Read the full article and share it with future philanthropists who might fund the T/MC as a think tank and intermediary the way STRIVE is funded in Cincinnati ($1.5 million a year)and the way mentoring partnerships are funded in other cities and states ($300k to $1.5 million a year).

Then take a look at this video describing how to document actions taken in a collective effort. This demonstrates use of the OHATS that T/MC has piloted since 2000 and was created by a volunteer from the UK. The OHATS itself was re-built in 2008 by a volunteer based in Baltimore and his company in India.

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