How Do You Build the “Right” Cross-Sector Partnership to Implement Collective Impact Approaches?

One hypothesis that we are testing is that a cross-sector partnership working collectively to address a complex social problem can change a system. We think that the innovative aspect of the collective impact approach—which emphasizes principles such as alignment of disparate actors toward a common agenda, shared measurement, and carefully structured leadership and communication strategies—is in who is applying it (a cross-sector partnership) and what it is being applied to (complex social problem).