The series “Collective Impact, 10 Years Later” has elevated a range of voices from people catalyzing, implementing, funding, and supporting collective impact work. The series reflects on how the field has evolved since Stanford Social Innovation Review published the first article on collective impact a decade ago and shines a spotlight on the importance of placing equity, community ownership, and sharing power as essential components of collective impact work.  We are grateful to all of the authors and partners for their insight, wisdom, and time shaping the field and capturing these learnings.

Collective impact remains as relevant today as it was 10 years ago. In fact, during times of political divide, pushback against movements for racial equity, denials of science, and other dividing narratives in our culture, collective impact initiatives in many settings remain places where people representing diverse perspectives are finding ways to co-create a future together that bridges divides. In addition, when comprised of stakeholders from both formal positions of power and community leaders calling for bolder, more transformational change, collective impact initiatives hold great promise for braiding together improvements in existing systems.

As we look ahead to the next decade, approaches to collective impact and other collaborative place-based work will continue to evolve. This evolution will be driven by changes from multiple directions: It will come from our external environment as we face new, challenging, or unpredictable circumstances that affect our work, our communities, and ourselves; It will come from within as we individually reflect on how we build and improve our own personal practices so that we can be stronger partners in our work and in our communities; and it will come from within our relationships and partnerships with each other as collective change is built by mutually contributing, sharing, learning, and doing together to reach a better, more equitable, and transformational future.

The Collective Impact Forum and our partners see several areas for further evolution, learning, and energy over the coming years.

Read the full article about approaches to collective impact by Jennifer Splansky Juster and Cindy Santos at Stanford Social Innovation Review.