L.A. Compact & the L.A. Opportunity Youth Collaborative Present at National Collective Impact Convening

From Tuesday, May 23^rd to Thursday May 25^th, the Collective Impact Forum, an initiative of FSG and the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions, held its 2017 annual national Collective Impact Convening in Boston, MA at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.  Highlights of this year’s convening included:

• Deep-dive workshops, tools sessions, and one-on-one coaching on topics such as capacity building, joint fundraising, community engagement, engaging the private sector, equity, leadership, continuous learning, evaluation, and use of data (Visit the 2017 Boston Collective Impact Convening agenda and live streamed videos from the conference.)
• Short talks on successes and failures in collective impact
• In-depth discussions by stage of collective impact, including early, mid, and late stage
• Opportunity to interact with a diverse audience of funders, backbone leaders, and other collective impact community partners
• Joint conversations with attendees of the Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund Spring convening, a gathering of over 200 opportunity youth leaders meeting at the same venue

On May 23^rd, leaders from the L.A. Compact and the L.A. Opportunity Youth Collaborative (OYC) had the pleasure of presenting at the Forum for one of the many excellent deep-dive workshops.  L.A. Compact Director Carrie Lemmon, Institutions of Higher Education Collaborative staff lead Paola Santana with UNITE-LA, L.A. Compact Senior Coordinator Emily Blake, and OYC Director Thomas Lee with the Alliance for Children’s Rights presented examples on how to structure, fund, and sustain a multi-convener constellation model approach for education and foster youth collective impact initiatives to a packed room at the conference. (Speaker bios).

Attendees at the “Structuring and Funding a Multi-Convener Model for Collective Impact,"workshop learned how the L.A. Compact has embraced and adapted the Constellation Model of Collaborative Governance. Leveraging a constellation model approach to collective impact has enabled the L.A. Compact to promote a broad cradle-to-career vision while fostering independent action by constellation workgroups convened by partner organizations, like the Alliance for Children’s Rights.  This approach allows each convening body to bring differential expertise to the table, strengthening the connection between partners and the overall impact on students, especially vulnerable populations like foster youth.  Presenters provided insights on joint funding and communication strategies, as well as how the L.A. Compact has ensured continued engagement by political and system leaders over nine years of collaboration.