Tamarack believes that solutions to complex problems, such as poverty and racism, will require engaged communities working together in new and innovative ways.
Leaders from government, community organizations,
business and volunteers are collaborating across sectors in
communities throughout the country to improve the quality
of life of citizens. Multisectoral collaboration has become
an important process for realizing bold visions and systemic
change.
Bringing people in communities to collaboration is an emerging field of practice. Once a community decides on its vision for the future, how does it move forward? How can community leaders collaborate across sectors for impact?
Our 2007 tele-learning series will examine how collaborations can make a strategic impact in their communities. We will showcase stories, case studies, experts and ideas on the real work of collaboration in an attempt to further advance the skills of collaborators and practitioners, and to help make the work of renewing communities easier and more effective.
 Paul Born works with foundations, all levels of government, local and national voluntary organizations and businesses to assist them with their specific community engagement efforts. As the leader of Tamarack – An Institute of Community Engagement – Paul has over 20 years of experience and training in community building, including founding and leading innovative organizations at the local and national level. Learn more about Paul here.
 Mark Cabaj also works closely with organizations, groups and sectors to assist them with their specific community engagement efforts. His love for community building work began in human services with Human Resources Development Canada and Aboriginal groups in rural Alberta. He has a strong background in urban and regional planning, with a focus on evaluating the work of community economic development organizations. Learn more about Mark here.
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The Roots of Communities Collaborating for Impact
The idea for Communities Collaborating for Impact stems from Tamarack's Communities Collaborating Institute. The inaugural offering of the Institute, held in September 2006, brought together over 70 leading collaborators from Canada and as far as New Zealand to share the challenges, joys, frustrations and the "wicked questions" that emerge when working in a multisectoral fashion on a complex community issue.
Concepts that mattered most to those 70 plus leaders - resilience, ingredients for success, implications for organizations and leadership, and getting to impact - have inspired the session topics of Tamarack's 2007 tele-learning seminar series.
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Rediscovering Collaboration
We have long seen collaboration at work in the human services industry. In fact, conversations about collaboration have ensued for over 30 years, but the dialogue has recently taken a different shape. We have started to recognize the importance of working multisectorally and acknowledge that issues facing communities are often interrelated.
In the past, communities sometimes attempted to address issues in isolation. Poverty, for example, is not a simple issue. It can be connected to racism, family disconnectedness, education and a whole host of other issues. In attempting to address poverty in isolation, we tend to oversimplify its complexity.
We now know that fractured responses to interconnected problems will give us fractured solutions. Even though the cost of working collaboratively may be high, the end is more than worth it.
We are also starting to see changes in collaboration trends. We are moving from collaborating across organizations to collaborating across sectors.
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As we recognize the interrelatedness of issues facing communities, we are realizing the need to understand and address issues on a local level. Over time, there has been a "downloading" of responsibilities from federal and regional levels to municipalities. This downloading has created a new space for multisectoral collaboration to occur.
A regional and local response to issues facing communities makes a lot of sense in terms of responding to economic and social issues. We have a greater ability to deal with such issues at a local level because we are more connected and knowledgeable of their context.
In other words, there is a real importance of place. Economic and social issues must be dealt with differently across communities. For example, poverty reduction is an important issue across the country, but it must be addressed differently in Toronto than in Vancouver.
How does a community become what it wants to become? By asking this, community work becomes everyone's responsibility. Consider taking an asset-based approach to achieving the goals of your collaboration and community.
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Ingredients for Successful Multisectoral Collaboration
While there are a number of resources about generic collaboration, research about multisectoral collaboration is slowly emerging. In "Can this Collaboration be Saved?" Paul Mattessich identifies the necessary ingredients for non-profit collaborations to succeed. The six categories to determine success are:
- Environment - An environment with a history of collaboration has a higher chance of succeeding in a community than an environment without a history.
- Membership - Collaborations with a diverse range of players, perspectives, skills, knowledge and networks are generally more effective.
- Purpose - A collaboration tends to hold together if it is trying to do something that no single organization can achieve on its own.
- Process & Structure - A collaboration with flexibility and organizational structure is more likely to succeed than one without.
- Communication - Importance lies not in the volume of communication, but in its quality.
- Resources - The members of a collaboration can be seen as part of its resources. A formal commitment from members is key to a collaboration's success.
Leadership is also key to driving a collaboration. However, leadership is not restricted to one unique, leading individual. It often requires a group of committed individuals. The collaboration and resilience of leadership are important ingredients to achieving successful multisectoral collaboration.
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In one sense, collaborations are in a stage of rediscovery. What is important from the history of collaboration that we must recognize in present-day collaboration? There are both personal and systemic implications of collaboration and finding the balance between the two is important.
Individuals, organizations and collaborations in community work are becoming highly specialized. This, in turn, causes people to have difficulty adapting to and identifying with other experts. The skills required to achieve interconnectedness in communities and collaborations are personal. Perhaps we could overcome this organizational disconnect by recognizing the common good among members of a collaboration, as well as their responsibility to the community.
A hierarchy may develop when working collaboratively. First, a collaboration may establish its goals. Once this vision is created, the collaboration agrees on a way of working to address the particular issues it wants to change or influence in the community. Acknowledging the process of collaboration can be equally as important as the product or results your collaboration seeks to achieve.
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Competition sometimes develops within a collaboration, which can be frustrating and discouraging to its members. Sometimes it is easier to collaborate multisectorally rather than across one sector because similar groups may be competing for funds and resources. Identifying unique nuances and philosophies in your collaboration can help set your collaboration apart from the rest, and assist in making your efforts resonate with funders, the community and even members within your collaboration.
Sharing information plays an important part of overcoming many of the issues that hinder a collaboration, including competition. Multisectoral collaboration cannot occur unless the voices of those who are affected are at the table for discussion. Policies must be considerate of the individuals and groups that they are affecting.
Building an enabling environment for collaboration requires a consideration of the interconnected roles of its players, such as the philanthropic sector and government. Trust is key to the success of this interconnectedness.
Is collaboration the creation of another organization? Is it a technology that allows organizations to work differently? Or, is it similar to a campaign that has a beginning and an end? The conversation about collaboration is a complex one, and we've only just begun.
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The
Communities Collaborating Institute —
The Communities Collaborating Institute’s first offering
in September 2006 was targeted to individuals from a cross
section of organizations using collaborative processes to
find new solutions to the complex issues that face communities.
The Upside of Down — Author Thomas Homer Dixon argues that converging stresses could cause a catastrophic breakdown of national and global order. But, Dixon believes that there is much we can do to prevent this outcome. In fact, less severe types of breakdowns could open up extraordinary opportunities for creative, bold reform of our societies.
Competition in the Voluntary Sector: The Case of Community-Based Trainers in Alberta — This article, written by Walter J. Hossli, highlights key competitive activities voluntary agencies now undertake to provide their services in the current environment. He explores the changes in funding, programming, administration and more as agencies increasingly adopt a business model to survive.
Shared Space: The Communities Agenda — This report, written by Sherri Torjman of the Caledon Institute, examines the goal of the communities agenda to promote resilience in order to build strong and vibrant communities.
The Challenge in Designing Government Programs for CED — In this report, Stewart Perry looks at the challenges governments face when collaborating to address the conditions of marginality.
Can this Collaboration be Saved? — Author Paul Mattesich identifies 20 factors that can make or break any group effort in order to help your collaboration succeed.
9 Emerging Organizational & Leadership Principles —"Theory is fine. But what am I supposed to do?" Good question. That's where this article comes in. Here you will find summaries of nine specific, action-oriented rules of thumb for leading in a complex environment. Each principle is accompanied by insights from some of the leading thinkers in complexity science.
It's Time to Start Connecting the Dots — In this address to The Pew Partnership, Lisbeth Schorr urges organizations involved in building stronger communities to “connect the dots in ways that would allow us to tell our story more convincingly to the wider world.”
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