There are key concepts that can enhance your collaborative work together for greater collective impact. To make the most of time and resources, consider collaborating with other stakeholders including hospitals, health departments, community action agencies, and community health centers rather than working separately. Many such organizations often have their own requirements for assessing community needs and planning interventions. Imagine the efficiencies that may be gained by working together, pooling resources. Imagine how much greater the results and broader the impact could be from this combined effort. Also, remember that engaging the community is essential to this type of collaboration.
Key Concepts
- A common agenda and vision for change, including a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed-upon actions is shared by all participants
- Shared accountability and ownership of each stage of the CHI process, with clearly outlined roles and responsibilities for each partner
- Multi-sector collaboration is pursued throughout the CHI process (e.g., with CHI stakeholders)
Tools for Getting Started
Tools are listed below in an order roughly aligned with the order of the key concept(s) they support above.
- Vulnerable Populations Footprint
- This data-visualization tool can be used to support the initial steps of multi-sector collaboration. It helps a community collaborative map some key area demographics in order to identify areas where they might consider working together, and thus, who to involve based on the geographic area or population of interest. (Note: It requires free registration to log in.)
- Developing Strategic and Action Plans
- Go to the Outline and Example tabs for help in developing a vision, mission, objectives, strategies, and action plan. Related resources and real-life examples are included.
- Collective Impact
- Go to the Main Section and Checklist tabs for an overview of how to move toward Collective Impact by bringing actors from different sectors together to form a common agenda. It includes links to resources to help improve collective impact, including a checklist for progress and readiness assessments.
- Collaboration Multiplier
- This is an interactive framework and tool for analyzing collaborative efforts across fields. It is designed to help an organization better understand the partners it needs, how to engage them, and how to lay the foundation for shared understanding among partners.
Click here for additional tools related to the key concepts .
Relevant Excerpts from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Final Rule
The IRS Final Rule on Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNA) for Charitable Hospitals contains language related to select key concepts above. An excerpt of this language is provided below. To see the full regulation, click on the hyperlinked references below this paragraph.2
