Collective Impact and Public Narrative

This discussion will offer some background material on collective impact and public narrative.

What is Compassionate Seattle: Creating Collective Impact?

What is a compassionate city?  A compassionate city creates conditions that are conducive to life. It recognizes compassion as an ethical imperative in its policy decisions. A compassionate city deepens the quality and the extent to which its citizens embrace compassion in caring for its own neighbors.

We intend that each participant be inspired by stories of compassionate action in our community and use the day to engage with others in the movement here and beyond.   No single organization, however innovative or powerful, can solve the challenges we face; but we can come together to organize and turn what we have into what we need. 

We are collectively advancing a shared story based on the values of cooperation, sharing, empathy, and happiness.  Our community officials and neighbors have been promoting these values in the areas of business, justice and law, health, family and youth, arts, food, spirituality, and the different aspects of sustainability.  We will gather to hear and weave our individual efforts to produce “collective impact” - common purpose realized through cross-sector alignment and coordination.  We are linking the sustainability movement with compassion, peace, happiness, and love – a green compassion movement!

Over the next six months (April to October) we will coauthor a new public narrative about collaborating to create shared value.  In the process we will strengthen Compassionate Seattle as a restorative system and community infrastructure for creating collective impact.  

What is Public Narrative?

Public narrative is how we communicate our values through stories, bringing alive the motivation that is a necessary precondition for creating collective impact.  Public narrative combines a story of self (why we are called to leadership), a story of us (the values of our community that call us to leadership), and the story of now (the immediate challenges we’re facing). The City of Seattle has launched an organizing training to develop emerging leaders in using public narrative.  You can access these materials here - Engage Seattle. 

We recommend that each of us learn to tell our story of self, story of us, and story of now and commit to develop our shared story of creating collective impact that we will be writing over the next six months.  Each presentation we make should answer the following questions:

• How is my work helping to create a compassionate culture?
• How is my work mutually reinforcing with others?
• How does my work help others here do their work? 

What is Collective Impact?

In February 2011 an article was published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review titled "Collective Impact".  The article summarizes an approach to how single impact entities -- public or private organizations, community groups, and government agencies can come together, cross sector, to create effective change.  This concept fits very well with the vision, mission and objectives of the Compassionate Seattle. We see ourselves as the entity that supports the other entities working to create a compassionate world.

The opportunity starting in April  and working through to October is to put in place the conditions required to create collective impact. There are five elements:

1. The first is a common agenda and here in Seattle we have one, to create a compassionate city over the next nine years. 
2. The second element is a shared measurement system. In other words we need to agree on what we measure and what are the conditions of satisfaction for saying that we are in fact a compassionate city.
3. The third element is continuous communications. We are building a cross channel infrastructure that includes meeting face-to-face to support the steady flow of communications to keep everybody informed, coordinate our actions, and come to resolution and make decisions.
4. The fourth element is mutually reinforcing activities. These activities will include events, programs, initiatives, projects all the stuff that we do. The challenging part is to start to think about how what we’re doing reinforces what others are doing.  The Compassionate Action Network will help visualize and comprehend the connections between us.
5. The fifth element is the backbone infrastructure support organization. This is what the Compassionate Action Network aspires to be.

What is the 10 Year Campaign for Compassionate Cities?

The Compassionate Action Network (CAN) came into form as a result of the breakthrough event hosted in Seattle in April of 2008 called the Seeds of Compassion.  That five-day event planted the seeds for the Compassionate Action Network.  That same year Karen Armstrong won the TED prize and wished to implement globally the Golden rule. A year was spent writing the Charter for Compassion.  

In 2010 the Compassionate Action Network launched a 10 Year Campaign for Compassionate Cities and led a campaign to have Seattle become the first city in the world to affirm the Charter for Compassion through a joint proclamation issued by the Mayor and City Council. 

A Video Overview of Collective Impact

For further discussion of these topics please join the Compassionate Seattle group on the Compassionate Action Network site. If you have further questions please don't hesitate to contact Jon Ramer at jon@idealnetwork.com