An Institute for Community Impact

The purpose of this by-invitation only workshop is to educate leaders and funders of community health improvement initiatives about Collective Impact (CI) and how it can be used to support and accelerate their work. The workshop will include:

• An introduction to CI as a framework to accelerate community change
• Consideration of the implication of Community Impact for specific roles and organization
• Opportunities to apply CI to existing community projects
• Strengthening capacity of participants to utilize CI to advance their goals

To accomplish these goals, the workshop will include:

• Reviewing the CI framework, anchored within the concepts of collaboration complexity and “seeing systems”
• Providing an overview of the CI framework, consisting of three pre-conditions and five conditions of CI
• Highlighting the differences between collaboration and CI cited in the Stanford Social Innovation Review articles (http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/collective_impact

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• Making the case for “Why collective action?”
• Illustrating the impact of community solutions using Vibrant Communities Canada, and other examples
• Outlining key collaborative leadership principles that enhance the effectiveness of collaborative work
• Facilitated opportunities for information sharing amongst participants in order to build a shared definition of CI; create a better, shared understanding of opportunities to apply CI as a framework to support implementation of the various projects currently underway to enhance well-being; identify possible synergies and gaps across the various plans; and, explore the possibility of creating a common agenda that would help align efforts in ways that are mutually reinforcing to support greater CI

It is expected that this workshop will help participants:

• Understand the principles of CI and its differences from traditional collaboration
• Develop consensus around the opportunity to apply CI to support community health and well-being projects
• Deepen their understanding of individual efforts currently underway in the State of Alaska that support community well-being
• Discuss and enhance understanding of the state-wide, common agenda of Healthy Alaskans 2020, and working as part of that framework in terms of CI, to align activities to achieve greater impact