In this “deep dive” discussion, Jen, Robert, and Tracy explore what factors can support an initiative’s work so that it can sustain itself while working to reach its goals.
How do you sustain momentum over the long-term when doing collaborative work? For many collective impact initiatives, there can be a far horizon to see actual long-term population-level results- like 5 or 10 years for a project (or longer.) Change can take a long time, and because of that, an added challenge is just keeping people motivated, keeping partners at the table, or figuring out how to fund a long-term initiative when grant funding may not continue after a year or two. So what do you do? If these big social change goals take a long time to become reality, how do we get there? In this episode, we’re taking a deep dive discussion to talk about seven factors that can support an initiative’s long-term sustainability.
Featuring Jennifer Splansky Juster, Robert Albright, and Tracy Timmons-Gray.
Resources and Footnotes
Paper: Sustaining Community-Based Programs: Relationships Between Sustainability Factors and Program Results by Dr. Lydia I. Marek and Dr. Jay A. Mancini
Tool: Sustaining Collective Impact Efforts (Tamarack Institute)
Resource: Guide to Evaluating Collective Impact
Case Study: Collective Impact in Emergency Response: A Case Study of Milwaukee’s COVID-19 Civic Response Team
Podcast: Together Through Crisis: A Case Study of Milwaukee’s COVID Civic Response
Blog: The Baker’s Dilemma and the inequity of restricted funding
Blog: Managing Change During the Pandemic: Thoughts for Collective Impact and Nonprofits
Tool: The Eco-Cycle Mapping Tool
More on Collective Impact approach to collaborate for social change:
Infographic: What is Collective Impact?
Resource List: Getting Started in Collective Impact
The Intro music, entitled “Running,” was composed by Rafael Krux, and can be found here and is licensed under CC: By 4.0.
The outro music, entitled “Deliberate Thought,” was composed by Kevin Macleod. Licensed under CC: By.
Have a question related to collaborative work that you'd like to have discussed on the podcast? You can send it to our short podcast listener survey or at info@collectiveimpactforum.org.