Building sustainable responses to complex societal needs is a major challenge in contemporary society. Collective Impact is a holistic approach for responding to a complex societal issue in which a wide variety of interested parties work together to address the many different aspects of the given issue. It is a powerful approach appropriate for dealing with many of a society's challenges. Developing trust is a major aspect of creating a sustainable effort.
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Collective Impact does require a significant amount of time to put in place the key components of such an effort. These components are:
- A common agenda.
- Continuous communication.
- A backbone organization that takes on the responsibility of facilitating and coordinating the effort.
- Mutually reinforcing activities.
- A shared measurement system.
There have been a number of Collective Impact projects in the United States. In these projects, the interested parties spend a considerable amount of time meeting on a frequent basis in order to move through the stages of an effort. These stages have been described as:
- Designing and implementing the initiative.
- Focusing on achieving significant changes in patters of behavior.
- Achieving meaningful, measurable change.
Throughout a Collective Impact initiative, there is an emphasis on a data-based process of reflection, learning and adaptation of the effort. Participants need to have the patience to focus on building relationships as well as the proactivity to take specific, tangible action steps.
Building Trust
Building trust is a critical factor on which the progress of a Collective Impact effort depends. Trust is a "gating" item that will either facilitate or retard the movement through the requirements of the effort. At the early stages, it is particularly important as the parties endeavor to arrive at a common agenda.
Much can be said about what it takes to build trust. One perspective is that building trust is a process in which each party needs to demonstrate to the others over time that he/she will follow through on the promises and representations that they make. Also part of building trust is a growing awareness that each will conform to an accepted standard governing the dealings that each has with the other - whether that standard is fairness, equity, quid pro quo, etc. Another factor in building trust is the history of connection and past dealings among the parties which in turn reflects all of these other factors.
Trust and Sustainability
There is a relationship between the progress in building trust and the sustainability of the effort. The more progress in building trust, the greater the potential for sustainability of the effort. Beyond this, trust and sustainability are iterative in that each will reinforce the other in either a positive or negative vein.
Sustainability also requires the willingness and time on the part of the parties (as well as the donors) to "hang in" during the lengthy process of developing the effort before tangible results can be observed. The greater the trust, the more comfortable the parties will be with one another and the more gratifying will be the relationships that support the effort.
Trust and Context
The proess of building trust is also impacted by the context of the effort. Creating trust in a rural community where most people already know one another is a different proposition from creating trust in an urban setting where many are strangers to one another. Similarly, creating trust in a closed community where there are many historical relationships is different from creating trust in an open setting where there will be many, first-time relationships. National or regional culture is also an important variable in that different cultures have different norms of behavior, guiding principles and values and other sociological attributes. Trust and sustainability will vary based on the nature of these various factors.
Building Trust and Sustainability in Israel
This afticle asks the question of how might the process of building trust and achieving sustainability in a Collective Impact initiative in Israel be different compared to one in the United States. There are aspects of the Israeli culture that will both facilitate and retard the process of building trust and achieving sustainability.
Facilitating Factors
- There are strong, large-scale, pre-existing networks in Israeli society in which trust already exists. These networks are most often developed in the course of service in the Israeli military which is a requirement for both men and women though with some exceptions. Networks are also the result of existing in a small country where many people know each other or know someone that the other person knows.
- Common values and a common orientation based upon the common Jewish religion often support the fulfillment of expectations with regard to behavior and provide a perception of commonality that supports trust.
- There is a norm of debate and arguement as a normal way of doing business which enables tackling difficult issues without necessarily taking disputes personally and which may in fact support a sense of relationship.
- There are strong national norms of behavior.
Retarding Factors
- The majority networks in Israel do not include Arab, Druse or Bedouin Israelis though each of these groups has their own strong networks. The work of building trust requires knitting together the different larger networks. There are also people on the periphery of society, e.g. members of the Ethiopian Jewish community who may not be strongly embedded in the majority network.
- Common values and orientation and a sense of commonality as a result of the common Jewish religion do not apply to Moslem, Christian, Druse or Bedouin participants. The sense of commonality within Judaism at a high level breaks down because of strong differences between secular, religious, Hasidic, ultra-orthodx groupings of Jews.
- There is a general sense that Israeli society constitutes a "fixed pie" of resources in which each segment seeks to benefit their own group at the expense of the others. Related to this is a parochialism of interests that has historically been institutionalized in political and religious movements and political parties.
Conclusion
It may be that given all of these factors, Israel may not be different from the United States. In both societies, a complex constellation of factors requires a fine-tuned effort of trust building appropriate for the particular context. On the other hand, it may be that the strength of pre-existing relationships and networks, a sense of commonality and accepted norms of behavior do provide a stronger initial foundation for trust building than is possible in the more wide-spread and heterogeneous society in the United States. It is possible that the listed facilitating factors can be leveraged in order to more quickly build trust and provide for greater sustainability in a Collective Impact initiative in Israel.
The following video reflects the kinds of things that can be leveraged in the process of building trust.
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