This fall, the Collective Impact Forum is launching its 2025 Essentials for Collective Impact online workshop series.
Registration for these workshops are open:
- Essentials for Collective Impact Full Series Pass – Join All 4 Workshops
- Introduction to Collective Impact and the Backbone Role: Wednesday, September 17, 1pm – 4pm ET
- Introduction to Systems Change for Collective Impact: Tuesday, September 30, 1pm – 4pm ET
- Critical Communication Practices for Collaboratives: Thursday, October 16, 1pm -4pm ET
- Tools for Collaborative Engagement and Planning: Thursday, October 23, 1pm – 4pm ET
Visit our Workshop Eventbrite site to register.
ABOUT THE ESSENTIALS WORKSHOP SERIES
Are you part of a collaborative effort and looking to strengthen your skills to improve the impact of your effort?
This fall, join us for Essentials for Collective Impact 2025, an online workshop series during September and October 2025. Designed for those working in collective impact and other place-based efforts, this series offers practical guidance and tools to help you deepen your understanding and enhance your work across four key areas:
- A foundational exploration of collective impact and the role of the backbone
- Understanding systems change and what it means for collaborative work
- The critical communication practices to support collaboratives achieving impact
- Tools and approaches for collaborative engagement and planning
Registration Types:
Attendees can register for either:
- Full Workshop Pass to join all four workshops, or
- Individual workshops within the series.
Each workshop is 3 hours; registration includes a copy of the workshop presentation materials to keep as well as access to the workshop recording. Recordings are available to review for three months after the workshop.
Who should join Essentials for Collective Impact 2025? This workshop series is designed for those doing collective impact or collaborative work and may especially be helpful for those in the early/beginning stages of your collective.
Recordings of workshops available as part of registration: After each workshop in the series, recordings and copies of the presentations will be made available so that you can continue to review the materials and guidance shared. Recordings are available for three months after the live event, so attendees are encouraged to review during that time.
To Register
Visit our Eventbrite site to register for a workshop. Attendees can register for the full series pass and join all four online workshops, or register for an individual workshop on a specific topic.
Workshop Rates:
- Full Series Pass (4 Workshops): $549 for Early-Bird (through 8/1/25); $599 after early-bird period.
- Individual Workshop: $199
Group Registration Discounts:
There is a 10% discount for groups of 10 or more people who are interested in registering for the full workshop series.
Please contact Tracy Timmons-Gray at tracy.timmons-gray@collectiveimpactforum.org for information about this discounted rate. Group discounts are not available for single workshops.
Scholarships:
A limited number of reduced-price registration scholarships are available for each workshop. This scholarship would reduce a single workshop registration from $199 to $75.
To apply for a reduced-price scholarship, please complete the scholarship application, listed below by each workshop, by their respective due date.
- Introduction to Collective Impact and the Backbone Role: Requests due by Friday, August 29. Apply now.
- Introduction to Systems Change for Collective Impact: Requests due by Friday, September 12. Apply now.
- Critical Communication Practices for Collaboratives: Requests due by Friday, September 26. Apply now.
- Tools for Collaborative Engagement and Planning: Requests due by Friday, October 3. Apply now.
Registration Deadlines:
To join either the full series or an individual workshop, you must register by the below dates.
- Full Series Registration Early-Bird Rate: Register by August 1, 2025
- Full Series Registration Regular Rate: Register by September 12, 2025
- Introduction to Collective Impact and the Backbone Role: Register by September 12, 2025
- Introduction for Systems Change for Collective Impact: Register by September 26, 2025
- Critical Communication Practices for Collaboratives: Register by October 10, 2025
- Tools for Collaborative Engagement and Planning: Register by October 20, 2025
Cancellations and Refunds:
Refunds are available, minus a 10% processing fee, as long as registrants contact us ahead of the cancellation deadlines listed below and in our FAQ. All requests for a refund must be emailed to Tracy Timmons-Gray at tracy.timmons-gray@collectiveimpactforum.org ahead of the respective refund deadline.
Refunds cannot be fulfilled after the deadline has passed. Refund requests must be received by these dates:
- September 10, 2025 – Full Series Pass
- September 10, 2025 – Introduction to Collective Impact and the Backbone Role
- September 24, 2025 – Introduction to Systems Change for Collective Impact
- October 8, 2025 – Critical Communication Practices for Collaboratives
- October 15, 2025 – Tools for Collaborative Engagement and Planning
Have More Questions?
Please see our FAQ further down this page for answers to frequently asked questions. If your question is not addressed in our FAQ, please reach out to Tracy Timmons-Gray at: tracy.timmons-gray@collectiveimpactforum.org.
Visit our Eventbrite site to register.
Workshop Descriptions
1) Introduction to Collective Impact and the Backbone Role
Date and Time: Wednesday, September 17. 1pm – 4pm ET (US & Canada)
If you are just getting started in collective impact work and are looking for an overview of the approach and role of the backbone, we invite you to join “Introduction to Collective Impact and the Backbone Role.”
Focus areas for this session include:
- An overview of the 5 Conditions of collective impact and why they are important
- Strategies to support centering equity practices within collective impact work
- Designing a results-focused common agenda
- Discussion of governance structures and the backbone role
- Building a culture for collective impact
Who is this workshop designed for? This workshop is designed for participants who are new to the collective impact concept and early in their initiative’s development.
Faculty: Paul Schmitz, Senior Advisor, Collective Impact Forum and CEO, Leading Inside Out; Jennifer Splansky Juster, Executive Director, Collective Impact Forum
2) introduction to Systems Change for Collective Impact
Date and Time: Tuesday, September 30. 1pm – 4pm ET (US & Canada)
To make lasting, transformational progress in communities, collaboratives often pursue both programmatic work and systems change strategies. But the idea of “systems change” can feel vague and can be interpreted in a range of ways.
Our “Introduction to Systems Change” workshop will introduce a framework for concretely thinking about the different components and strategies for systems change from FSG’s publication: The Water of Systems Change and support participants in assessing system change opportunities within their own work.
Faculty: John Harper, CEO, FSG; Jennifer Splansky Juster, Executive Director, Collective Impact Forum, Courtney W. Robertson, Director of Programs and Partnerships, Collective Impact Forum.
3) Critical Communication Practices for Collaboratives
Date and Time: Thursday, October 16, 1pm – 4pm ET (US & Canada)
Continuous communication is an essential component of effective collaboration, both amongst collaborative partners and with the broader community. Strong communication practices move an initiative forward in many ways including:
- Building trust and strengthening relationships across participations
- Keeping partners engaged and aligned toward a common agenda
- Raising broader awareness and visibility of the initiative
- Shifting narratives that hold challenges in place
Yet designing and implementing effective communications – particularly when resources are limited – can be complex and challenging. This workshop offers practical, actionable guidance on how to design and structure both internal and external communications. We will highlight lessons learned from the field, share useful tools and frameworks, and offer approaches you can immediately apply to strengthen communication efforts within your work.
Faculty: Lisa Attygalle, Consulting Director, Tamarack Institute; Jennifer Splansky Juster, Executive Director, Collective Impact Forum.
4) Tools for Collaborative Engagement and Planning
Date & Time: Thursday, October 23. 1pm – 4pm ET (US & Canada)
Collaborative systems change work is complex and requires participants to be able to see the system in which they operate and understand how parts of this system relate to each other.
In this hands-on session, attendees will learn about multiple tools for seeing the system in which they work, identifying key partners to engage from this system, and assessing how your collaborative work is unfolding across phases of collaborative evolution. We will practice applying two tools during the workshop: Actor Mapping and Ecocycle Mapping (see below for more on these two tools). Attendees will also receive an orientation to other tools and resources that can help visualize, plan, and implement your collaborative systems change work. Come ready to engage!
In this session you will:
- Practice creating an Actor Map, a systems thinking tool that focuses on identifying and visualizing actors in the system and understanding their connections
- Practice creating an Ecocycle Map for your initiative, which helps visualize how resources and energy are distributed across your work, in order to plan for collaborative resilience
- Learn about additional collaborative engagement and planning tools
- Discuss how you might apply these tools in your own work
- Learn from peers about how these tools apply in their contexts
Faculty: Cindy Santos, Senior Associate, Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions; Jennifer Splansky Juster, Executive Director, Collective Impact Forum
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I register for Essential for Collective Impact? Visit our Eventbrite site to register. You can join all four workshops with a full series pass, or register for individual topics that interest you.
Is Essentials for Collective Impact in-person or online? This is an online learning series. We will use Zoom Meeting for all sessions.
What time zone are the workshops using? Workshops are listed in Eastern Time (US & Canada); each session is from 1pm – 4pm ET. If you are joining from another time zone, please note the time difference.
What currency does this workshop series use? We are based in the United States and our registration is in US dollars.
What will each workshop entail? Each 3-hour workshop will include a mix of presentation, personal reflection / activity, Q&A, and small group discussions. There will be a short break planned during each workshop.
What accessibility practices will Essentials for Collective Impact be using? We will have zoom auto-captions on for each workshop. Ahead of the workshop, we will send out copies of any presentation or handouts that the workshop will use. After the workshop, we will share recordings of the workshop as well as any referenced resources. If there are other access measures that we can provide, please reach out to Tracy Timmons-Gray at tracy.timmons-gray@collectiveimpactforum.org.
Who is Essentials for Collective Impact designed for? The Essentials for Collective Impact series can be helpful for anyone working in a collective impact/collaborative effort, but may be especially helpful for those in the beginning/early stages of their collaborative work. If you are preparing to launch your collaborative or are in the first few years of your initiative, the resources shared in this series of workshops may be very valuable. You can choose to join the full series or the specific topics that you are most interested in.
If I attended the Essentials for Collective Impact workshop series in the past, will the content be the same? Can I join this series? The 2025 Essentials for Collective Impact series is a mix of new workshops, and workshops held in the past. If you joined in the past, we recommend checking which sessions would be new for you and exploring them.
What’s the difference between the Full Series and Single Workshop registration? If you are signing up for the full Essentials for Collective Impact workshop series, you are signing up for all four workshops. If you sign up for any single workshop in the series, you will be just registering for that specific workshop.
Will workshops be recorded? The workshop presentation and full group Q&A will be recorded and shared after the workshop with those who registered. Breakout group discussions that will be part of each workshop will not be recorded. Recordings will be shared within a week after the workshop. Attendees have access to recordings for three months following the workshop.
Are there Group Rates available? Yes. If you have 10 or more people interested in registering for the complete Essentials for Collective Impact series of all four workshops, there is a 10% discount available. Please contact Tracy Timmons-Gray at tracy.timmons-gray@collectiveimpactforum.org on how to access this discount. Single workshops in the series do not have a group discount.
Can my team sign-up with one registration? No. Each person will require their own registration for either the full series pass or for a single workshop. One registration equals one person in attendance. Full series passes are not transferable to other team members.
How do I request a refund? Registered participants who decide to cancel their participation in either the full Essentials for Collective Impact workshop series or a single workshop will receive a refund of their registration fee minus a 10% processing fee. The 10% fee covers non-recoupable administrative expenses associated with registration and event preparation. All refund requests should be emailed to tracy.timmons-gray@collectiveimpactforum.org. Please note, we are unable to process refunds after a refund deadline has passed. Please see refund deadlines below.
REFUND AND CANCELLATION DEADLINES
Full Workshop Series:
For a full four workshop series refund, requests for cancellations will be honored through Wednesday, September 10, 2025.
Single Workshops:
If you register for a single workshop, these are the refund deadlines. These are only for those who registered for a single workshop and not a full series pass.
- Introduction to Collective Impact and the Backbone Role: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
- Introduction for Systems Change for Collective Impact: Wednesday, September 24, 2025.
- Critical Communication Practices for Collaboratives: Wednesday, October 8, 2025
- Tools for Collaborative Engagement and Planning: Wednesday, October 15, 2025.
