Clear Impact’s Dan Duncan recently wrote a report in Urban Institute about Collective Impact for Promise Neighborhoods’ Postsecondary and Career Success efforts. Promise Neighborhoods is a U.S. Department of Education program that focuses on ensuring high schoolers graduate and attend college or receive a secondary degree/certificate. In the report, Mr. Duncan stresses the importance of keeping Collective Impact efforts up-to-date by using the values of “Collective Impact 3.0” for this program.

The updated version of the Collective Impact 3.0 framework, developed by the Tamarack Institute in 2016, focuses on community and movement-building instead of leadership from organizations. The complete 2016 publication details the changes and benefits of 3.0 as opposed to the original framework and can be accessed via PDF here. Movements, according to Mr. Duncan, “change the ground on which everyday political life and management occur. This is the true essence of Promise Neighborhoods.”

The report acknowledges that Promise Neighborhoods’ objective of increasing postsecondary education has been trending down. In order to make a change and help the organization reach its goals, Mr. Duncan employs Turn the Curve Thinking in conjunction with Collective Impact 3.0 through five strategies: 

1. Focus on building a movement in the neighborhood for postsecondary and career success, not just a better service system. 
2. Develop a common purpose for action around postsecondary and career success that is based on the experiences of the youth and families in the neighborhood and their hopes and dreams. 
3. Build the relationships and trust necessary to achieve greater postsecondary results. 
4. Ensure that families, neighbors, and youth are engaged as co-producers of postsecondary results and not just the objects of the work. 
5. Build a commitment to data and accountability and use those data to learn and evolve at the neighborhood level to drive greater postsecondary impact and results.

By developing these strategies alongside the steps of Turn the Curve Thinking, such as the story behind the curve, the report is an ideal demonstration of how to approach a goal that is trending away from the intended direction. Identifying key partnerships and the meaning behind data can help an organization develop evidence-based strategies that create meaningful community changes. Ensuring that the communities an initiative serves are co-producers of their own success will not only allow for the workload to be shared in a manageable way for all parties but will also work to create more meaningful changes and better results.

With these strategies in mind, it is important to remember that Turn the Curve Thinking is just one aspect of the larger idea of Results-Based Accountability (RBA). RBA is a disciplined way of thinking and acting to improve entrenched and complex social problems. Clear Impact recommends the combined strategies of RBA and Collective Impact 3.0 because of their combined power to turn data into meaningful changes that help improve communities. 

Download the full report in Urban Institute by Dan Duncan for free here.