“Why Collaboration Fails and What Ecosystem Thinking Can Do About It” - A webinar for those working to drive social impact
Many collaborative efforts fail—not because the people involved lack commitment or skill, but because they are operating from a limited frame. When collaboration is built on a siloed or program-centered perspective, it often focuses too narrowly on individual organizational goals, isolated metrics, or short-term outputs. The result is coordination without meaningful change.
Making Eviction Visible: Why Indianapolis Needs a Real-Time Data Dashboard
Over the past several years, access to timely, usable eviction data has been inconsistent. Dashboards have gone offline, stopped updating, or lacked the level of detail needed to understand what’s actually happening across neighborhoods. Without clear data, it becomes harder to respond—harder to target support, shape policy, or even see the full scope of housing instability.
When Commitment Meets Coordination: The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis Partners with City Rising
At a time when many institutions are retreating from complexity, some are choosing to move toward it with intention.
The Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis is one of these intentional institutions.
In the face of rising polarization, intensified immigration enforcement, and increasing forms of state-directed harm impacting vulnerable communities, the Diocese is taking a deliberate step toward strengthening how its commitments translate into coordinated, informed, and effective action that strategically uses its many assets to strengthen their solidarity with Hoosiers living on the front lines of precarity.
This spring, they have invited City Rising to serve as a social impact partner for Mutual Aid & Direct Action: A Strategic Formation Series for Clergy.
Social Impact Learning Series— “Why Collaboration Fails and What Ecosystem Thinking Can Do About It” on April 16th
Introducing the City Rising Social Impact Learning Series
Across communities, leaders and organizations are working on issues that are becoming more complex while many traditional forms of support are in retreat. This moment calls for new ways of understanding social impact—approaches that help us see the relationships, assets, and conditions that shape whether meaningful progress becomes possible.
The City Rising Social Impact Learning Series is a new collection of free webinars designed for hands-on leaders, practitioners, and organizations seeking practical ways to strengthen their work. Each session shares tools, frameworks, and insights drawn from more than two decades of social impact practice, research, and project leadership.
Beyond Collaboration: Why Social Impact Requires an Ecosystem Shift
Social impact leaders committed to their communities recognize that increased collaboration is an effective strategy to not only survive in this funding shift, but to thrive.
And yet, despite the growth of collaborative initiatives, many of the problems communities care most about remain stubbornly persistent.
This tension points to what might be called the collaboration paradox.
The more complex a social challenge becomes, the more collaboration it requires. However, collaboration alone often fails to produce the kind of systems change that leaders hope to see.
We Need to Talk About the Political Determinants of Health
Most people familiar with public health understand that social determinants of health (SDH) refer to "the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, and people's access to power, money and resources"—essentially anything non-medical that serves as the basis for health outcomes. What's crucial to understand is that 70% of our health outcomes result from these social determinants.
But here's the critical question: Where do the social determinants of health come from?
Beyond These Gates: Remembering, Reclaiming, and Reimagining the Indiana Women’s Prison
History is often written by those in power, leaving the voices of those most affected by systemic injustice unheard. Beyond These Gates is a community-driven remembrance project dedicated to amplifying the narratives of women who lived, served time, and contributed to the community at the Indiana Women’s Prison (IWP).
The Conspiracy of Community, Engagement, and Friendship
The word conspiracy comes from the Latin root conspirare, which means “to breathe together.” Being in a community with others and walking together in friendship requires understanding that relationships are essentially a shared commitment to “breathe together.”
What is a Relational Strategy?(And Why You Need One)
Whether you are leading a nonprofit, running a social enterprise, or working within a public-serving organization, your ability to cultivate and sustain authentic relationships can determine the effectiveness of your work. But what does a relational strategy actually mean, and why should you invest in one?
Naming the Features of a Relational Community Engagement Strategy: Prioritizing Desires, Not Problems or Needs
Like relational community engagement’s focus on people’s assets — their gifts and resources — not just the things or services they may need, a relational practice should prioritize the desires, dreams, and aspirations of those who live within our communities. People often targeted for need-based services or equity-based interventions are rarely asked what they desire or dream about.
Naming the Features of a Relational Community Engagement Strategy: Mapping Community Assets and Identifying Flows of Power
Relational community engagement is related in some ways to asset-based community development (ABCD). Both seek to uncover, cultivate, and lift a community’s assets rather than reduce people to a need or deficit because both outlooks prioritize people, not projects. While relational community engagement does not ignore problems faced by residents, it refuses to only look at issues and needs. Rather than focusing solely on problems, a relational approach uncovers existing strengths within a community.
Collaboratively Imagining and Designing the Future— Understanding Relational Engagement
Relational engagement is concerned not just with the present but with shared futures. It asks us to think not only about the “now” but also how we shape the future through what we do together today. Futurity isn’t about individual, future-oriented benefits. It’s communal, emphasizing how groups and cultures can shape the future rather than the future simply “happening” to people.
Naming the Features of a Relational Community Engagement Strategy: Cultivate Commitments to Shared Values
Relational engagement begins when those involved agree to honor, share, and uphold the values and principles they believe should guide the relationship. What does this mean? It means setting aside time during the start of and throughout a relationship to surface and explore the values and principles that guide the group’s efforts. It also means committing to adhering to and cultivating these values and principles in authentic and meaningful ways. Committing to shared values is a humanizing experience and is one way to prioritize human connections over transactional exchanges.
What Should a Relational Community Engagement Strategy Include?
Relational engagement refers to an approach to community involvement and interactions that prioritize genuine, ongoing relationships over transactional exchanges. This approach challenges universities, nonprofits, corporations, and governments to pivot away from service or charity models designed to “help” communities by seeing only needs towards a form of engagement that instead seeks to develop and sustain holistic relationships within a community’s ecosystem.
Want to Create Systems Change? Your Organization Needs a Relational Community Engagement Strategy
Community engagement isn’t just a buzzword—it’s the foundation for building trust, fostering collaboration, and creating sustainable change. Whether you’re leading a nonprofit, managing a business, or running a government office, having a strategic, asset-based, relational community engagement plan can be a game changer.