Advancing Racial Equity Through Collective Impact and Systems Thinking

This post is on the final piece of the fifth and final module of the Living Cities online Collective Impact course. It continues the examination of the combination of Collective Impact and Systems Thinking applied to Community Engagement and Equity considered under the NCP Collective Impact wiki-page over the last three blog posts. Such a combined approach though goes much further back than that.

The article, Leveraging Grantmaking: Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Social Systems, was provided as part of the Systems Thinking Certification course in response to a request for something more concrete related to system thinking as applied to New Community Paradigms. The first of two of the article's main key points being that non-obvious interrelationships among elements in a complex system often thwart people’s best intentions to sustainably improve system performance. The second being that complex, nonlinear problems that most foundations address can be solved most effectively by thinking systemically instead of linearly about these problems. It demonstrated how such programs can be made more successful when these lessons were heeded in the development of a ten year plan to address homelessness in Calhoun County, Michigan (population 100,000).

Systems thinking is supposed to be a means of addressing complexity. It is natural to look for something concrete to build an effort upon. We want pragmatic solutions without wasting too much time on theory. This, however, brings about a counterintuitive trap raised by J. W. Forrester.

Policy improvements in the short run often degrade a system in the long run while policies producing long-run improvements often initially degrade the system at the start. Because the short run is more visible and more compelling, calling for immediate attention its impact is not really more concrete, but more what I have elsewhere called entrenched, as Forrester explains.

“However, sequences of actions all aimed at short-run improvement can eventually burden a system with long-run depressants so severe that even heroic short-run measures no longer suffice. Many problems being faced today are the cumulative result of short-run measures taken in prior decades.”

With simple systems, causes are close to symptoms of a problem in both time and space. In complex systems or with wicked problems, causes are often far removed in both time and space from the symptoms, lying far back in time and arising from an entirely different part of the system from when and where the symptoms occur, easily misleading us into believing our actions to alleviate the symptoms to be concrete in nature.

Three different disciplines or areas of consideration involving multiple perspectives then are brought together. The entire series of posts collected under the NCP Collective Impact wiki-page has involved taking on a number of new perspectives, the most notable being the use of Kumu relationship mapping.

The ability to adopt different perspectives is not only important to relational mapping, it is important to systems thinking in general. It is also important to a system of both deliberative and participatory democracy. It is essential, I would assert, in questions of equity, particularly if those questions are asked in terms of community economic and empowerment equity requiring answers of the larger community.

Two approaches have been presented throughout the exploration of the Collective Impact course and especially during the review of this last module. Under the Living Cities narrative approach, Week 5: Working with Communities to Advance Racial Equity and Eliminate Disparities (map) is the narrative starting point for what is the Advancing Racial Equity sector map. Under the NCP Kumu mapping approach, it becomes the goal and heart of the larger more complex effort. There are two different pathways then but with both moving toward the same objectives.

Neither is that much better or worse than the other barring a few insightful advantages by Kumu mapping that have been previously mentioned. If the Kumu mapping approach has done anything noteworthy, it is breaking the inherently linear aspect of the narrative approach adopted by Living Cities. This is not a criticism. The Living Cities online course was undoubtedly intended as an introductory course. Such an approach though makes it more difficult to question debatable premises or go in new directions. In truth, a better combining of the Living Cities narrative approach and Kumu mapping visual approach than has been achieved by this initial effort would be the best outcome.

To reach this point and help this effort grow, we must return to the roots. This means taking on yet another new perspective. Over the course of this series the systems thinking iceberg model has been featured a number of times. The main feature being the majority of which is hidden. This current example appeals to more organic connections using a plant analogy while retaining the hidden from view or deeper aspect with the added potential to grow.

The Advancing Racial Equity sector map then becomes the part of the plant seen on the ground. It is defined or influenced though by elements beyond the boundaries of its readily apparent morphology. It was advised in past posts that it was not necessary to click on each (map) link in a post. This time the series of (map) links will build from the ground creating the supporting and sustaining root structure {do remember though to close unneeded tabs}.

Continuing with the plant analogy, there are twelve elements making up Advancing Racial Equity sector map, the fewest of all the sector maps, which total fifty-two elements altogether thus supporting the general idea of a root system.

Of the elements of the Advancing Racial Equity sector map, Week 5: Working with Communities to Advance Racial Equity and Eliminate Disparities (map) serves as a trunk or stem. Some elements after their connection to the stem, stand independently. Other elements to be shown will be separated, with hidden connections to be revealed later. Still, other elements will be shown to have deep and extended connections.

A short Vimeo video, How do you build in a consideration of racial inequities when working with community members? (map), highlighting the Living Cities Integration Initiative, (map) features Michelle Fure, Outreach Coordinator Metropolitan Council and Uma Viswanathan, former Director of Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute for Urban Habitat (map). It provides a quick perspective on applying a racial equity lens to working with community members through community engagement and collective impact.

The Collective Impact Forum blog post Bringing an Equity Lens to Collective Impact (map) by Sarah Marxer and Junious Williams, one of the presenters in Racial Equity and Community Engagement in Collective Impact webinar (map) goes even deeper applying an equity lens to the five Collective Impact elements.

The Race Matters Institute (map) and Racial Equity Impact Analysis (map), along with additional resources of the Kellogg Foundation’s Racial Equity Resource Guide (map) and Harvard Implicit Bias Test (map) provide an examination of more personal perspectives of stakeholders and community members.

Moving on to the more connected elements, there is again a recognized need for Using Data to Close Achievement Gap (map) which along with Racial Equity and Community Engagement in Collective Impact, (map) is connected with Working with communities to advance racial equity and eliminate disparities (map) through the sector map Working with Communities on Racial Equity as discussed in the last post, Addressing Community Equity through Collective Impact requires a Deep Systemic Perspective .

4 Insights into Collective Impact plus Community Engagement and Racial Equity (map) can be expanded upon as the central element and theme for the 4 Insights CI + CE and Racial Equity sector map discussed in People like systems change, they just don't like thinking about it (systems) all that much, linking to the Living Cities Integration Initiative (map) cited above.

Returning to the sector map Working with Communities on Racial Equity and moving an additional degree further or deeper, takes us to a closer and expanded look at What Makes Collective Impact a Powerful tool for Systems Change? (map) by adding in the sector map CoIlective Impact as Tool for Systems Change as discussed in Thinking about Deep Systems Change through Collective Impact with an extension to include Evidence-Based Decision Making and finally completing the fifty-two elements making up the module.

Addressing Community Equity through Collective Impact requires a Deep Systemic Perspective

We can now move on to the Working with Communities on Racial Equity sector map and determining the best means of Working with communities to advance racial equity and eliminate disparities (map) but first, we need to build upon what has been covered to this point.

So far two other sector maps, Collective Impact as Tool for Systems Change and 4 Insights Collective Impact plus Community Engagement and Racial Equity, have been covered over the last two blog posts. Hopefully, covering each sector map on its own provides for a more coherent understanding than attempting to address the entire module 5 map at once which with fifty separate elements or resources and multiple connected relationships can be far too complex to be readily absorbed. While it remains unnecessary to click on every (map), there will be, in some cases, an expansion set upon what is being termed linchpin elements and therefore an enhancement of complexity.

At some point, though they all need to come together. The geographic analogy sometimes suggested can start to fall apart at this point. First, unlike the listed places of an itinerary for an expedition, all of the elements making up this module can all happen at once, not just with the elements of this module but all the modules making up this course. The elements demanding attention don't wait for their allotted week. Second, for the better, they can also be engaged strategically in an order, both internally for each sector map and among the sector maps, more closely matching the construction of the systems thinking iceberg. This is behind the rationale to go deeper with the inherent but arguably not so readily apparent systems thinking aspect of Collective Impact.

The path taken so far, not only in direction but also in what was focused on and what was left out, can also be questioned as being merely one of many that were possible. The Kumu map though does make this more apparent than the written narrative approach with which content is hidden behind links and the overall structure of which is never truly transparent.

The most comprehensive element in the current exploration is Racial Equity and Community Engagement in Collective Impact (map) which in the case of the Kumu map links to a Vimeo video instead of an EventBrite event for Living Cities hosting a webinar. These are people walking the walk, not merely mapping out the path so there is a far greater authenticity and relevant impact but creating maps from previous explorations and discoveries still serves a useful purpose. The presenters, from a variety of sectors, public health, major city government, local non-profit community group and the Strive partnership, which under the Living Cities narrative is a linchpin element or resource organization between Collective Impact as Tool for Systems Change and 4 Insights Collective Impact plus Community Engagement and Racial Equity, with another linchpin element or resource being the Living Cities Integration Initiative.

The element Why Involve Community in Collective Impact At All? (map), from the first module, helps in building an understanding of community needs by engaging grassroots community members to shape and guide collective impact initiatives and mitigate the potential disconnects that grass-tops leaders can face. It is arguably though from a grass-tops perspective because if from a grassroots perspective then the question would be how not why. There are an additional nine elements from the first module making a return visit to this the last module demonstrating that the supporting infrastructure for this effort goes deep and attention to them should not be lessened as having had been already addressed.

The What Makes Collective Impact a Powerful tool for Systems Change? (map) involves the four components that make potentially possible a variety of collective impact shared results such as reducing by 50% unemployment among working-age adults, whether serving communities with 9% unemployment rate or 19% unemployment rate. It is also a linchpin between Working with Communities on Racial Equity and theme of the central element for Collective Impact as Tool for Systems Change.

There is a sub-sector map, Evidence-Based Decisions extending out from the sector map Collective Impact as Tool for Systems Change suggesting again a deeper structure which also connects with What Makes Collective Impact a Powerful tool for Systems Change? and if extended an additional degree connects with all of the sector maps of this module.

There is then a need to collect disaggregated data by race (map) to build essential feedback loops (map) enabling collective impact work to address the persistent wide gap in educational attainment between white and non-white within an education system which is failing too many students of color, cradle to career. Despite the availability of data that could help, racial disparity seems to be hidden in plain sight, so we don't design solutions with the intention of addressing those disparities.

By Using Data to Close Achievement Gap (map), Portland was able to challenge a persistent urban myth that when it came to education, everything was going just fine with an overall graduation rate at about 80%, with only slight gaps separating white students and students of color. District leaders were able to adopt policies to embed analysis of these disparities as standard practice.

As Living Cities correctly asserts, however, both the head and heart are needed to understand the structural causes of racial inequality. A Head, Heart and Hands (HHH) framework (map), emphasizes developing an understanding of racial inequality using both logic and theory (the head) as well as the feelings and emotions from personal experiences (the heart) before moving to action by identifying solutions (the hands). Albuquerque’s My Brothers Keeper efforts in Unmuting the Voice of Youth of Color to Help Lead Social Change (map) applied this framework to hear directly from young men of color about their suggestions for improving the cradle to career pipeline.

This can be more in keeping with the softer systems thinking approaches explored through the NCP Direct Democracy and Systems Thinking, especially Exploring with the Dialogue, Deliberation and Systemic Transformation Community to Discover New Possibilities parts 1, 2 & 3. The follow-up, A Map for a Pathway to New Community Paradigms, illustrates the challenge of spanning these two systemic perspectives, hard data and soft connections, into one. This can potentially be extended even more deeply as discussed in The What, Why and How of Design Thinking and Collective Impact part 2 of 3, particularly with the potential of Art as a Path of Social Disruptive Innovation Towards New Community Paradigms. One newly discovered example and one that might add another H for healing to the Head, Heart and Hands (HHH) framework (map) is the group Hidden Voices.

Engaging with community members of color is critical then to ensuring that social change efforts are sensitive to the different lived experiences and historical contexts of people of color in the U.S.

Collective impact initiatives that target racially and ethnically diverse communities need community members of color to be “at the table” in the literal sense that is, as an integral part of the accountability and governance structures that define how the cross-sector partnership operates as explained by Needle-Moving Collective Impact Guide : Capacity and Structure, (map) one of Three Guides to Creating an Effective Community Collaborative for Needle-Moving Collective Impact by the Bridgespan Group.

Living Cities goes on to ask the question again (map), Why Involve Community in Collective Impact At All? (map). Their answer is that community members of color need to be engaged at least at the levels of involve, collaborate or co-lead to truly influence how collective impact efforts promote equity. However, the chart that Living Cities provides in the first article still does not include the promises made by both IAP2 and Tamarack which were raised at the start of this endeavor. This is not to suggest some failing by Living Cities, they are correct as far as they go but without the promise, the conversation is far more unilateral.

The Kumu map, instead refers back to the element, originally used in the first module, for the IAP2 community engagement continuum of goals (map) which has been reconfigured making it possible to jump to one of three different sector maps in which it plays a role.

Equitably partnering as established by a government institution such as a city hall with its community members could include, for example, offering two-way translation services to all stakeholders when working with non-English speakers. True equitable partnering though would involve community empowerment including on-the-street efforts such as Urban Habitat Boards & Commissions (map) providing explicit training to community members of color to occupy more formal positions of leadership locally. This then involves the continuing development of resources identified in Week 2 of this course (map) focused on Amplifying Voices of Community Members (map).

People like systems change, they just don't like thinking about it (systems) all that much.

In the previous post, Collective Impact is seen as being fundamentally about systems change, which has really been an underlying theme throughout this exploration. In this post, the central article of the sector map Four Early Insights (map) {remember you don’t have to open every (map)} begins incorporating equity considerations into Collective Impact work more directly. 

What is missing in my view is more on systems thinking, at a deep level, to help successfully navigate these system changes. Any systems thinking connections so far have though been raised by this blog and not the Living Cities' Collective Impact course. I realize that I am going up against the systems thinking fight club rule but without understanding its potential role we cannot achieve the level of change required.

The first actual inclusion of systems thinking in the course is Jeff Raderstrong's Living Cities article, Racism, Collective Impact and Systems Change: Tying it all Together (map) which cites the classic systems thinking piece, Donella Meadows’ “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System” (map) as required reading for anyone working for social change.

“The most effective means to intervene in a system being the power to transcend the paradigms or mindsets out of which the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises.” 

What needs to be avoided is thinking of the twelve leverage points as merely a check-off list. Yes, they can be used in that way but they also point to something more suggested by the systems thinking iceberg model which has been cited a number of times previously. There are four levels of the iceberg but it is still one iceberg with the majority of it out of view.

One of the four insights is that conversations about race and class can be incredibly difficult to navigate because of the sensitive nature and that some communities may not have the capacity to constructively facilitate them because of where they are as a community as a whole or perhaps different components of the community are at different stages.

As discussed in Putting Community in Collective Impact (map, includes video link), first introduced in Module 1, from the Harwood Institute and in Stanford Social Innovation Review (map), working at a deeper and holistic level calls for systemic community intervention. Also closer in line with the foundational levels of the systems thinking iceberg model are the original Stanford Social Innovation Review Collective Impact article (map) and Putting Community into Community Engagement (map).

Another insight is the need to recognize the difference between equity and equality in community engagement and I would venture community empowerment.

The poster above is a common way to demonstrate the difference between equality and equity on the Internet. This blog is going to question some of the assumptions behind it a bit more.

It makes the valid argument that treating everyone the same is not the same as treating everyone fairly. This is part of the reason though why this conversation is so difficult because much of it rests on perception.

In the “equality” picture, each person is given the same sized box, meaning the tallest person still has an advantage over the shortest. In the “equity” image, the shortest person is given, not the biggest box, but two boxes to stand on, achieving the no doubt admirable social goal sought by Collective Impact or similar endeavor by overcoming perhaps historical disparities such as lack of early childhood nutrition. Invariably glossed over it seems though is the question where did the boxes come from, who made them, and how was the box taken from the biggest person, bringing them down to minimal visibility?

Some could argue that it must have been the biggest person, or the rich or entrepreneurs or business people who made the boxes possible in the first place. The poster assumes that the biggest person willingly gives up his box but while some may appreciate the need to address historical discrimination, they don't necessarily want to substantially give up on that which they see themselves as having had personally worked hard for.

This means one of two things, either the biggest person believes in a community goal of letting everyone in the group see the game or the two others, through a majority vote say, took a box from the biggest person and gave it to the smallest, with no loss to the middle person. The first is becoming less true because the rich can pay for the social goods they wish for bypassing community means of addressing those issues. The second is also unlikely to be achieved because it proposes the middle class working directly with the disadvantaged class which does not seem to be the common tendency. Where this has been true, it has likely been a combination of both appealing to the sense of community of upper income and establishing political pressure from income levels below. These assumed distinctions are, no doubt, very simplistic but they recognize a reality that must be dealt with. It is a visual analogy, so it shouldn't be stretched too far but it can hopefully provide some additional insights.

Living Cities does this by recognizing the need to include both grassroots and grass-tops. Engaging grassroots community members to shape and guide collective impact initiatives are intended to mitigate the potential disconnects grass-tops leaders can face in understanding community needs and should cover several different considerations to take into account when developing specific engagement strategies. This is where the questions raised above about equity and equality can come into play.

Living Cities’ Collective Impact insight into attempting to redefine power recognizes that power conventionally resides in the leaders and institutions that have authority to make unilateral decisions. It is not quite as apparent though that the ability by community members to quickly identify what is and isn’t working is also power in the same fashion.

The Living Cities’ Collective Impact insight into defining community is bifurcated in part to those people who will be impacted by the changes the Collective Impact partnership seeks to make, and in part to those who have been historically left out of the decision-making process. Addressing one group doesn't mean addressing the other even if they are the same people.

Collective Impact partnerships can help overcome this by highlighting the importance of incorporating community feedback into the work of the larger partnership but as suggested in Feedback Loops Keep Collective Impact Impacting we need to go further to understand the feedback loops comprising the system itself. As demonstrated in Systems of Public Participation - Ideal Design versus Entrenched Reality, what is presumed to be working within a system may not always be the case.

There is also still the further need to move from basically abstract ideas to connecting ideas together for strategic application, to the why, to begin overcoming what Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton called the Knowing-Doing Gap (page 7). 

We can then move to the upper levels of the systems thinking iceberg model with again StriveTogether (map), a network of cities addressing cradle to career education systems working with the Equitable Engagement Workgroup (map) in cradle-to-career work, which can include local students and youth as well as communities of color.

The reality is that it is not enough to give all community members an equal opportunity to engage in the Collective Impact effort to be successful. There still remains the need to actively meet communities where they are and create targeted opportunities around the unique needs of community members, in particular, those historically disengaged from civic decision-making. These tough, courageous conversations are an important starting point for any movement towards overcoming the Challenge of “Necessary but Not Sufficient” in Introducing Racial Equity to Grantees (map) in addressing Living Cities' Work on Racial Equity and Inclusion (map).

Next blog post we move on to the Working with Communities on Racial Equity sector map and determining the best means of Working with communities to advance racial equity and eliminate disparities (map).

Thinking about Deep Systems Change through Collective Impact

This post will be the first on the Kumu mapping of the fifth and final module of the Living Cities’ online Collective Impact course. There is a wiki-page with relevant links, Kumu maps, and blog posts concerned with this Collective Impact experiment and exploration.

The focus here is placed on the sector map Collective Impact as Tool for Systems Change, revealing a bias towards a hard system thinking approach to systemic changes dealing with the deeper levels of the systems thinking iceberg model and which purposely avoids beginning by attempting to alter people’s personal prejudices.

First, a reminder that you don’t have to open each map link on this page. Collective Impact as Tool for Systems Change is organized as explained in the Sector Map section of Navigation. 

Some of the elements populating the Collective Impact as Tool for Systems Change sector map have been featured in previous modules, suggesting that they could provide a deeper infrastructure and relate to other components across a Collective Impact approach. One, How Living Cities Thinks About Systems Change (map) has been added as a result of digging deeper into the material provided by Living Cities. Other elements unique to Module 5 are Connected Problems Require Collaborative Solutions (map), Backbone Organization or Function? (map), The Working Cities Challenge (map), Cross-Sector Partnerships (map), Diagnose the Adaptive Challenge (map), Disaggregated Data by Race (map) and Evidence-Based Decision Making (map). All of which together support the central theme of What Makes Collective Impact a Powerful tool for Systems Change? (map) introduced in Module 3 Kumu map.

Absorbing the source information provided by the Living Cities’ online Collective Impact course is essential, Greater familiarity with the various Kumu maps and the different relationships between the elements, as set by Living Cities, will then begin to reveal deeper connections and other possible relationships, especially if working in a group setting with different people having varying affinity with different elements, making individual contributions to a unique group perspective.

Going deeper into the elements of the map, How Living Cities Thinks About Systems Change explains how, “Too often, leaders attempt to apply programmatic, technical fixes to complex, interconnected systems level problems.” Ben Hecht President & CEO of Living Cities writes that Connected Problems Require Collaborative Solutions. It is, as has been stated before, a matter of transforming our mindset.

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems. The starting point is to see things differently from the current, dominant worldview which in so many ways is no longer relevant to the situation in which we find ourselves.” – HRH The Prince of Wales

We are learning by trying different approaches on the ground, seeing how institutions and individuals respond across sectors and measuring results. Deploying an existing or starting a new nonprofit or government institution or even business as a lead or czar institution won’t work though for these challenges because one, trends in funding for these efforts over the past few decades provide only restricted funds with little to no indirect costs, making it virtually impossible for any single entity to play the ‘connecter’ role alone in most places. Most organizations of any type will have neither the bandwidth nor the breadth of relationships and visibility across issues and sectors for it. Just as important, is the need for distributed leadership across institutions, starting with the individuals who lead those institutions.

Finally, institutions tend to stay in their own lane with funding, incentives and history invariably encouraging such behavior. Interconnectedness only happens when there is an intentionality to do it and the endurance to stick with it over time. The natural order can only be overcome and behaviors truly changed only when some institution or person is charged with getting up every day and connecting the dots. Strive Together (map) calls this function the ‘backbone’ of these efforts with funders specifically paying for it.

StriveTogether defines the difference between a Backbone Organization or Function? When working with an array of different communities looking to navigate the often contentious discussions around where the larger coalition should end up, they came to the conclusion that what is likely needed is a “backbone function” not a “backbone organization.” Not simply a matter of semantics, but a completely different way to approaching the staffing of collective impact work. Instead of a central power center controlling a traditional hierarchical paradigm, it is the sharing roles that, “Need to be taken on so as to connect the dots instead of recreating the wheel.”

The Working Cities Challenge (map) is one such initiative, advancing collaborative leadership in Massachusetts smaller cities and to support ambitious work to improve the lives of low-income people in those cities, in which Living Cities is participating.

There are other substantial shifts in mindset required to determine How to Achieve Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (map) that paradoxically both take longer than the standard election cycle but also require some sense of urgency, hopefully, instilled by the effort itself but still nonetheless requiring leadership. This type of leadership is often more at home in the business world. Those having an entrepreneurial spirit that can be applied to the social sector need to be, as Jim Collins would say:

"Interested in the sheer exhilarating pain of the journey. You’re not going to have that immediate gratification of accomplishment. You are going to be immersed in it and working and suffering toward it for a long time--the way artists suffer. You have to enjoy that sense of extended discomfort. It’s the quest, it’s the training, it’s the growth, it’s pushing yourself. You really get off on that. If you think standing at the top of the cliff is where the joy is, you don’t understand it. The real joy is in all the pain and growth and suffering and creativity required long before you get to the summit."

Such an undertaking would require tremendous support from the community and could quickly be derailed by a few politicians seeking to hoard their own power.

Perhaps the greatest mind-shift is that adaptive challenges are difficult to diagnose (map) and implement because their solutions require people to change their ways; involving human complexity meaning the problems themselves cannot be abstracted from the people who are part of the problem scenario itself, and then to determine what to conserve from past practices, what to discard from past practices, while inventing new ways that build from the best of the past.

This approach is based on Evidence-Based Decision Making (map) involving the making, capturing, sharing, and application of data and experiential evidence to ensure that funding streams and efforts are achieving the desired results. This in turn requires feedback or in the case of Collective Impact 3 Fabulous Flavors of Feedback Culture (map) involving a feedback culture and feedback loops, requiring to my mind both an understanding of the feedback loops that make up the system being influenced and collecting the information that is needed to know whether or not you are on track. Culminating with the creation of a data infrastructure, that gets the right information when needed through cross-sector partnerships building on the feedback culture and feedback loops, keeping them informed and creating change that can last regardless of administration turnovers.

It is with such a foundation that one can then begin using methodologies such as Disaggregated Data by Race (map) to help bring about transformational change with a renewed focus on addressing racial disparities, learning key lessons about the importance of using data to develop a baseline for identifying outcomes and continuous improvement, not as a tool to penalize leaders or point fingers at specific sources of the problem without fear that a commitment to transparency to the community could be interpreted as targeting students of color as the problem. This approach informs the StriveTogether Theory of Action in supporting children and youth from cradle to career.

The Live Cities Integration Initiative (map) involves testing three strategies believed to be central to catalyzing lasting, transformative change that benefits low-income people: collective impact (map), public sector innovation (map) and capital innovation (map), also added to the Kumu map. However, what remains essential and foundational is the need to involve the community in the Collective Impact effort (map).

Working with communities to advance racial equity and eliminate disparities (map) is, according to the Kumu map, the center of its own sector map and will be addressed in the near future but first, we will next look to 4 Insights Collective Impact and Community Engagement and Racial Equity.

Economic Growth and Equity within a Community - Benefiting the 100%

In the last post, we talked about Budgeting For Community Prosperity (wiki page), putting forward the idea that budgeting for community prosperity requires transparency as one means of addressing the upcoming period of austerity in which most communities will find themselves. Important though as budgetary transparency is, just as important is understanding where the dollars come from, where they are going and how they are used.

Within the creation of a community, beyond the individual accumulation of wealth by individuals, families, organizations or businesses there is also an emergent community wealth.

This is not a socialistic notion that is being put forward as it is not owned or directed by or derived from or generated by government. It is the community working together through the efforts of individuals, families, organizations and businesses that creates a community's wealth.  Local government can take steps to encourage its development and taps into it for municipal revenue.

More will be said of this concept in a future post but the benefits of a community's wealth should be made to benefit to the greatest extent possible all members of that community.

We are now speaking of the impacts of Economic Growth and Equity (wiki page) by a community and within a community. This is not a 1% versus 99% issue. The 1% does not live in the same communities as the 99%. People can choose their own brand of politics and economics for their families which in aggregate will define the community but within any community that one calls home it should be the 100% that is considered when making decisions for the community as a whole.

Under the post Governance through Community we spoke of factions within a community potentially being marginalized. The budget process is one way by which this can happen. A new community paradigm approach to public policy at the local level would hopefully be able to overcome this practice put forward by an incumbent political processes.

There are two levels were this could happen. First, at the level of broad policy based issues of employment, fiscal policy or environment among others that impact communities not only at a regional and state level but also at the national and global level. This adds to the complexity of issues with which a community must deal.

One relevant resource for these types of discussions is The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution.

The Hamilton Project seeks to advance America’s promise of opportunity, prosperity, and growth. The Project’s economic strategy reflects a judgment that long-term prosperity is best achieved by fostering economic growth and broad participation in that growth, by enhancing individual economic security, and by embracing a role for effective government in making needed public investments. We believe that today’s increasingly competitive global economy requires public policy ideas commensurate with the challenges of the 21st Century.

Another institution concerned with Economic Growth and Equality is the Center for American Progress.

The Center for American Progress held a forum on economic growth and equality. After opening remarks from Vanessa Cárdenas and Angela Glover Blackwell, members of the first panel talked about the link between economic growth and equality. Economist Emmanuel Saez in his presentation used graphs to show the relationship between equitable distribution of wealth and economic growth.

There are, to be fair, other organizations out there with the same focus but a different political perspective. These organizations though take a more community based approach in line with the thinking of this blog.

An organization with a focused on-the-ground concern regarding the question of community benefit for all members through Equity In Public Funds is the Advancement Project California. This approach works more directly with the concept of community paradigms.

Our goal is to provide public finance data, tools and training to local community-based organizations to strengthen their public interest and organizing campaigns. Equity in Public Funds partners with and increases the ability of community-based organizations to produce analyses of City and County fiscal inequities and advocate for reform.

This is the same organization behind Healthy City (wiki page). The Advancement Project offers Following the Money EPF.pdf as a tool to address concerns of budgetary transparency raised here and the last post by providing information on:

• How to read a city budget, 
• Where to find other key information that is not included in the budget, and 
• When and how to influence the city budget. 

While the document deals specifically with the City of Los Angeles budget there are still lessons that can be learned.