Overview
The Collective Impact Network (CIN) is a Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) sponsored initiative being co-led by PAN acting as the backbone organization.
Our goal is to facilitate collaboration on priority areas that will best support people living with HIV and hepatitis C and the front-line organizations that serve them.
At this time, it consists of seven PHSA-contracted organizations that are supporting the community-based response to HIV and hepatitis C, alongside the PHSA, represented and administratively supported by the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), with the BC Women’s Hospital in a co-visioning role. The FNHA is also represented at the table. At the outset of their work with the CIN, we asked a few introductory questions of the other 6 organizations:
- YouthCO
- Pivot Legal Society
- Community-Based Research Centre
- BC Hepatitis Network
- Options for Sexual Health
- Central Interior Native Health Society
Our Priorities
1. Increase involvement of People with Lived/Living Experience (PWLE);
2. Increase program equity and services for HIV and hepatitis C; and across BC (urban, suburban, rural and remote locations);
3. Harm Reduction;
4. Reducing Stigma;
5. Commitment to Truth and Reconciliation.
How does the Collective Impact Network function and what are we doing?
The diagram (below) illustrates how that works. The PHSA (in pink) funds and co-leads the venture, and PAN (marked with the logo) has dual roles to build capacity in the sector and provide CIN leadership and ‘backbone’. From left to right, by column:
In green, the PHSA service components drive all the funding for community agencies that make up the CIN. These components consist of advocacy, support, prevention and capacity building. In blue, we see the breakdown of the CIN – its leadership, meetings, support and related funding opportunities. In purple, we see how PWLE are invited to participate in all aspects of the CIN and is guided by the principles of GIPA/MEPA, the Hep C Manifesto and Nothing About Us Without Us.
In orange, we see the mutually reinforcing activities of the network. These primarily consist of team projects but also include other partner-driven actions (like advocacy, short-term innovation projects and other partnerships between CIN agencies).
In September 2022, we began the final stage of this cycle of the CIN. The activities agreed upon:
- CAP 1 – PIVOT-led work
- CAP 2 – Impactful provincial policy change work/advocacy (led by PAN)
- CAP 3 – More PWLLE into programming and employment, and/or centering PWLLE voices in advocacy (led by PAN)
In March 2023, all organizations decided to focus their actions together on a project within CAP 3. It is called “Researching, creating and disseminating a new resource(s): Guiding principles, policies and practices for employers to engage PWLLE in community-based organizations” and will run until March 2024.
History of the Collective Impact Network
Having devised a foundational structure to plan for core activities, such as quarterly meetings, the CIN had its inaugural meeting in February 2017. By May, we had defined our priorities and agreed upon our common agenda/ priorities.
For the network, PAN has developed a tool for measuring results consistently and we are using feedback to finalize this. Adopting shared measurement tools to track the impact of our sector’s collective efforts responding to HIV, hepatitis C and related conditions is key to tracking our shared successes and demonstrating the value of the work we all do. PAN is pleased to be working alongside of the PHSA and CIN Members to build shared measurement frameworks and collect data using a set of common measures.
We are also coordinating mutually reinforcing activities – so far, for the first two priority areas, including Asset mapping for peer-based work and the formation of a hepatitis C working group. This working group has helped us understand better the immediate needs for hepatitis C program equity and it has led to more mapping and needs assessment. PAN has also coordinated an internal application process for the PHSA’s Innovation Fund to help kick start novel programs within the network that are aligned with our common agenda. From meetings to activity planning to administrating the Innovation Fund, all are facilitated by PAN’s backbone role in continuous communication.
From September 2018-March 2020, based on network evaluation and our aim to deliver concrete actions over the next 18 month, the members agencies decided on focusing our work into 3 work teams that would be active outside of our face-to-face meetings. These teams were: 1) Increase involvement of PWLE; 2) Increase program equity and services across BC; and 3) Reducing Stigma. Each agency played a lead role in one, and a supportive role in at least one other.
In April 2020, the CIN entered a second phase of development and there was a shift in the agencies at the table due to whether or not their new funding proposal had been accepted. Based on evaluation of the workgroups, agency capacity and our priorities, the CIN had begun on a new stage of agency-led project collaborations.
What is the Collective Impact model?
Collective Impact is a framework to tackle deeply entrenched and complex social problems. It is an innovative and structured approach to making collaboration work across government, business, philanthropy, non-profit organizations and citizens to achieve significant and lasting social change.
The Collective Impact approach is premised on the belief that no single policy, government department, organization or program can tackle or solve the increasingly complex social problems we face as a society. The approach calls for multiple organizations or entities from different sectors to abandon their own agenda in favour of a common agenda, shared measurement and alignment of effort.
Unlike collaboration or partnership, Collective Impact initiatives have centralized infrastructure – known as a backbone organization – with dedicated staff whose role is to help participating organizations shift from acting alone to acting in concert.
John Kania & Mark Kramer first wrote about collective impact in the Stanford Social Innovation Review in 2011 and identified five key elements:
1. All participants have a common agenda for change including a shared understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions.
2. Collecting data and measuring results consistently across all the participants ensures shared measurement for alignment and accountability.
3. A plan of action that outlines and coordinates mutually reinforcing activities for each participant.
4. Open and continuous communication is needed across the many players to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and create common motivation.
5. A backbone organization(s) with staff and specific set of skills to serve the entire initiative and coordinate participating organizations and agencies.
“… we believe that there is no other way society will achieve large-scale progress against the urgent and complex problems of our time, unless a collective impact approach becomes the accepted way of doing business.” John Kania & Mark Kramer
In addition, Collective Impact Efforts Center Equity and collaboratives pursue equity through five strategies. Each strategy is important and should be woven into the implementation of the five conditions listed above.
- Ground the work in data and context, and target solutions
- Focus on systems change, in addition to programs and services
- Shift power within the collaborative
- Listen to and act with community
- Build equity leadership and accountability
For more information, please contact Simon Goff, Executive Assistant and Collective Impact Coordinator.
Related links:
If you are a member of the Collective Impact Network please find all meeting materials, minutes, presentations and work team information here.