How We’re Laying the Foundation for our Collective Impact Approach
The Urban Food Systems Pact is using a “Collective Impact” approach to address food access and food justice issues in Skyway. Collective Impact means we are bringing together people from the community with different backgrounds, people from different organizations and sectors, and working together toward a common purpose. As we shared with partners at our April 20, 2021 monthly partnership meeting, a foundational piece of Collective Impact is building a “Common Agenda.” The Common Agenda is a statement of purpose. At the same time, the Common Agenda is also a process focused on building trust amongst participants in our Urban Food Systems Pact.
What questions do we need to answer to build a Common Agenda? Here are some of the most important questions we will need to answer:
How are we going to work together? (Guiding Principles)
What is “in” and what is “out” for our work together? (Boundaries & Scope)
How will we define success? (Goal)
How are we going to split up the work, and prioritize? (Framework for Change)
How will we track progress and learn? (Plan for Learning)
As indicated above, answering these 5 questions will give us the five elements that create a strong Common Agenda: 1) Guiding Principles, 2) Boundaries & Scope, 3) Goal, 4) Framework for Change, and 5) Plan for Learning.
How long will it take for us to develop our Common Agenda? We want to be flexible so that we include as many voices and partners as possible in this process. As we mentioned above, the Common Agenda is both a statement and a process -- and we want to move at the speed of building trust. That said, we estimate that this process will take at least 5 or 6 months, so we plan to continue working on this throughout the spring and summer of 2021.
At our April meeting, we began brainstorming some of the key words that describe how we want the UFSP to work together as a collaborative. We will use this list of key words to start defining our Guiding Principles. Here are some of the key words that meeting participants generated:
sustainable
togetherness
intentional
welcoming
patient
people-centered
accessible
diverse
respectful
community-
centered
grace
collaboration
relatable
reliable
community
transparent
dignity
thriving
supportive
inclusive
love
respected
family-oriented
healthy
inviting
steadfast
integrity
open
committed
holistic
kind
culturally-
responsive
non-judgemental
What keywords would you use to describe how we should work together in the UFSP collaborative? Let us know!