“What are some steps to consider if I am interested in starting a new collective impact initiative in my community?”
Answered by: Junious Williams, Senior Advisor, Collective Impact Forum
Starting a collective impact initiative is an exciting prospect, but the wisest first step isn’t launching one. It’s determining whether collective impact is actually the right approach for your challenge. Too often, CI is treated as a strategy to deploy rather than an approach to explore. Beginning with a genuine inquiry — one that might conclude “not yet” or even “no” — is a sign of good judgment and builds the credibility your effort will need.
The exploration process should reflect what collective impact values: collaboration, shared learning, and authentic engagement with those most affected.
Here are some steps to consider as you begin:
Form a small, representative planning group.
Assemble a diverse group of people who reflect the communities the initiative will eventually need to engage, including people with lived experience. Set a reasonable time frame for the exploration and stick to it. Clarify roles from the start: who will convene, who will facilitate, and who will manage the work between meetings. Even if no formal backbone exists yet, someone needs to own the exploration, or it will stall. Commit genuinely to being influenced by what you learn, including conclusions you didn’t expect.
Invest in shared learning about collective impact — what it is, and what it isn’t.
Build in time for your planning group and eventual stakeholders to develop a grounded, common understanding of the CI framework. Collective impact is a structured, long-term approach to systemic change that requires a shared agenda, common measurement, mutually reinforcing strategies, and continuous communication across organizations. It is not a coalition, a coordination meeting, or a short-term campaign. Most CI initiatives take several years to demonstrate population-level outcomes. Stakeholders need to understand this before committing.
Develop a shared understanding of the problem.
Your group needs enough clarity on the problem to have a meaningful conversation about it. This doesn’t need to be exhaustive. A full common agenda process will come later if you proceed. Establish a working problem analysis: What is the geographic scope? Which populations are most affected, and where are the disparities? And critically: is this a complex, systemic challenge that requires coordinated action across multiple sectors, or one that a single well-designed program could realistically address? Collective impact is built for the former.
Assess community readiness honestly.
Collective impact tends to work when no single organization can solve the problem alone, current fragmented efforts aren’t producing sufficient results, there is political will among key leaders, and a trusted, neutral potential convener exists. Assess these conditions directly rather than assuming they exist because the idea feels compelling. CIF has published readiness assessment tools that can structure this evaluation and help your group reach an honest answer.
Map the local landscape.
Catalog the organizations, collaboratives, programs, and funding streams already working on the problem. Identify who controls the decisions and resources most relevant to the issue — and who is often excluded from those conversations. Look for gaps, duplication, and existing collaborative structures that could evolve into something broader, rather than starting from scratch.
Connect directly with key constituents before any formal convening.
Conduct one-on-one conversations with a broad cross-section of stakeholders: organizational leaders and community members with lived experience alike.
The goal is deep listening, not pitching the CI approach. Come with questions, not answers. Ask what’s working, what has been tried before, and why it didn’t stick, and what conditions would need to exist for people to commit to working together. What you hear should genuinely shape how you proceed and should be reported back to participants in a way that honors what they shared.
Identify a trusted convener and early champions.
The exploration process needs someone with the credibility, relationships, and neutrality to drive it, someone not seen as representing any one sector, funder, or organization. It also helps to identify two or three respected leaders across sectors who can signal to others that the exploration is serious and worth their time. Champions open doors that no backbone team can open alone.
Finally, make the decision to proceed deliberately.
If your exploration supports moving forward, resist the temptation to let momentum make the decision for you. Set clear criteria in advance for what “proceed” means before the exploration concludes, not after. Secure key community support and early funding commitments. Be honest with stakeholders about what collective impact requires: these initiatives take years to develop and produce population-level change.
If there is an urgent need for immediate action, consider two parallel tracks — deploying near-term strategies while the CI structure develops, and learning from both.
Related Resources to Explore
Is Collective Impact the Right Approach? In this blog, Admas Kanyagia discusses when CI is and isn’t the right model for a given problem and community.
Assessing Readiness. The Tamarack Institute has a diagnostic tool of five questions to assess readiness for starting collective impact work..
Readiness Assessment. The Collective Impact Forum also has a formal questionnaire tool to determine whether the preconditions for collective impact exist in your community.
Community Tool Box: Collective Impact (Chapter 2, Section 5). Provided by the University of Kansas, this is an accessible overview of the CI model and how it works in practice.
