Social Impact Blog

“That’s my third basket,” I said to a friend, smiling, as I sat through a presentation at Seattle City Year's “Ripples of Hope” fundraiser last week. Then I raised my paddle.

by Mario Morino, co-founder and chairman, Venture Philanthropy Partners

Based on my work over the past two decades in the social sector—and especially my past 12 years of working with Venture Philanthropy Partners—I have a perspective on the factors that are most responsible for undermining progress on our greatest social challenges.

by Terrence Mulligan, president of Napa Valley Community Foundation

This post originally appeared on The Council on Foundation's Re: Philanthropy blog.

As my colleague Peter Pennekamp from the Humboldt Area Foundation says, when it comes to community leadership it’s not always the most pressing issue that you need to be working on; it’s the issue where there’s energy and heat. In a word: tension. And in our community, there’s tension around immigration.

I didn’t go to “Foundations on the Hill” (FOTH) but was there in spirit through the data and stories collected by FSG and CF Insights. On March 21-22 representatives of organized philanthropy gathered in Washington, D.C., for two days of face-to-face meetings with lawmakers and their staff.

What’s in a Name?

In the case of “Collective Impact,” apparently a lot.

Last year, FSG coined the term “Collective Impact” in an eponymous Stanford Social Innovation Review article that described its five key practices. These highly structured practices enable broad cross sector coalitions of funders, nonprofits, companies and government agencies to work together effectively to make progress on large scale social problems.