Daunted by Yes

Three months ago, I wrote a note about an idea to launch a collective impact effort on the Eastside to “enable every child in Bellevue to emerge from our community ready to succeed.”  At the time, we’d had a set of initial discussions, but the entire project was in front of us.  Pretty much all we knew was that a key set of community leaders felt it was worth stepping forward together, using the collective impact model as a roadmap.

Now, a group of three brain-storming at a local Tully’s has grown to a leadership team of 23, representing the school district, the city, the schools foundation, service providers, community groups, faith-based organizations and many volunteers.  A series of one-on-one conversations with community organizations expanded to a launch conference with 70 attendees representing 38 organizations.  A task list of next steps has grown to 10 project teams with volunteer leadership in each, covering items as diverse as community engagement, data systems, marketing and communications, governance, fund raising and most critically service provider planning and collaboration.  A contact list that I could recite from memory has grown to over 170, necessitating the need to migrate from personal emails to a professional-quality newsletter system.  And we’ve  agreed on a mission/vision statement.

Eastside Pathways mobilizes our entire community to support every child, step by step, from cradle to career. Families, providers, schools and cities unite around common goals, measurements, and strategies to maximize each child’s opportunity for a productive, fulfilling life.

In some ways, we’re daunted by “yes.”   Where we expected to find resistance or indifference, we’ve met a community which has understood and embraced the opportunity.   Organizations have joined, leaders have stepped forward, volunteers have engaged.  Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the pace we’ve set.  And this is just the start-up phase! 

The most interesting and important questions remain in front of us. 

• How do you support a collaboration across these diverse organizations from a technical point of view, allowing people to interact and contribute productively, in a way that also allows them to pay attention to their day jobs of running lean and excellent organizations? 
• How do you create a governance and communications infrastructure that allow participants to understand when and how key decisions are made, and to feel fully included and represented without requiring everyone to be in a room to move forward? 
• How do you organize and present the accumulated data in a way which allows a diverse audience to understand Bellevue’s current track record in supporting kids cradle to career and invites engagement and action at whatever geographic scope is appropriate? 
• How do you create a backbone organization that is truly value-add to all constituencies, leveraging able volunteers while delivering the quality and reliability that this work requires?

Which brings me to perhaps the real question behind this posting.

What is Social Venture Partners’ role in this kind of work? 

To date, SVP has been sort of “invisibly present” in Eastside Pathways, both through the many volunteers (about one in three key volunteers to date are partners) and investees (Kindering, Youth Eastside Services and Childcare Resources are former investees that are playing leadership roles).   But EVERYONE who understands the collective impact model and understands SVP sees our capacity to provide unique and meaningful leadership in ALL of the questions I list above. 

SVP could, if it chose, create a knowledgebase of best practices around governance, collaboration, measurement and infrastructure that would enable collective impact initiatives to focus on their unique challenges. For each of the “how” questions listed above, SVP could serve as a repository and consultant, accumulating that knowledge over time through its work with various community initiatives.  Just as we help individual organizations raise their game to the next level, we could enable collective efforts like the Community Center for Education Results, the Environmental Priorities Coalition, or even Eastside Pathways aspire to known standards of excellence.

Should SVP get engaged in this kind of work?  Partly, the answer depends on what you think the potential these kind of collective efforts have to really impact communities for the better.   Some might argue that the kind of change proposed by efforts like collective impact is a fad or a waste of time.  Or that SVP should not dilute its focus on individuals and organizations. But a wildfire of adoption suggests that, for complex and chronic challenges like enabling every child to succeed, determined and hopeful communities are making a bet on the collective approach.  I’m hoping SVP will be in that vanguard.

If you're interested in learning more, or getting involved with Eastside Pathways, please feel free to contact me at: bill@ramblingclan.com

- Bill Henningsgaard, SVP Partner