Collective Impact and Public Collaboration

Opportunity that Logan Together has is to bring together the different groups in government, in schools, parents and health care practitioners to work together towards a common set of objectives regarding the well-being of children in Logan. This opportunity arises from the principle of collective impact, which is that groups working together can be more powerful and effective than if each group works individually in their own little silo. The opportunity has presented itself with this new conceptualization of action because the external environment is favourable to this collaboration.

Moreover, there are only limited internal weaknesses. The existing threats in the external environment can be overcome. Based on the analysis of the external environment, it is believed that Logan Together has tremendous potential for success, if given the right marketing strategy. The strategy will be focused on goals pertaining to the well-being of Logan's children, as these objectives are in common with every stakeholder. By implementing a strategy of collection action, Logan Together can work to improve on the existing benchmarks with respect to children's health and education.

The other major objective is to change the mindset of the different stakeholders, to re-orient the mindsets towards the value of collective action and greater collaboration between different agencies and organisations. External/Internal Situational Analysis The Logan Together team works within the government of the City of Logan to promote positive outcomes for the city's children, typically at the preschool level. The political environment is generally favourable, in that there is support both from the local government and from the state of Queensland.

While getting the necessary funding is sometimes a challenge, there is no significant opposition from any level of government with respect to this project. The economic environment is one of the main factors that influences funding levels. At present, the economic environment is neither favourable nor unfavourable. The social environment is generally positive. People in Logan are supportive of efforts to ensure that children have the best start that they can in life. There are enough people to serve as volunteers, again making the social environment fairly positive in nature.

The technological environment is also positive. Mass communications today make it easier for agencies to communicate quickly with each other, which enhances opportunities for cooperation. The legal environment is generally neutral. There are no legal impediments to pushing forward a plan for collective impact. The strengths of the Logan initiative lie with the people, who are committed to making life better for the people of Logan, and its children in particular. The people are not only passionate, but they are experienced, something that serves as a strength.

The major weakness lies with the traditional organizational authority structures. Most public service agencies operate with a bureaucratic structure, and this can inhibit interagency cooperation. For Logan Together, this is one of the major challenges that will need to be overcome, that structurally there is no unifying formal authority, which means that it might be harder to get agencies to cooperate if that involves making decision-making outside of the normal, formal bureaucratic channels. The major opportunity here lies with collective impact.

As Kania and Kramer (2013) note, collective impact is a means by which agencies with differing skillsets work together towards common objectives. The power of collective action is greater than if the different organisations were to work independently. It is precisely this opportunity that Logan Together wishes to pursue. The biggest threat to this initiative lies with bureaucrats at different agencies who may feel that their power and authority will be diminished.

It is an unfortunate reality that sometimes people become myopic with respect to their fiefdoms, and resist the sort of change that we are proposing, even when that change has demonstrable benefits. The marketing opportunity can be defined in part with consideration of the four Cs, which reflect customer, cost, convenience and communication. The customer in this case are the children that Logan Together wishes to serve -- they are the end user.

But the customer can also be conceptualized as the different agencies, schools and organisations that work with these children. So finding a way to appeal to these different groups is a critical element in the opportunity here. The cost is not so much monetary as it is about how resources are applied. The Logan Together vision involves different stakeholders coming together for collective impact, and this encompasses a wide range of things, including health, wellness and education for the children of Logan (Logan Together, 2015).

The people and groups with which we work are already using their resources for their own initiatives. Thus, there is opportunity cost in getting them to devote certain resources to working together with other groups. The communication element is a mix of different communication means, creating communication flows that are electronic, over the telephone and in-person. In terms of the convenience, part of the success for Logan Together will be to ensure that pulling everybody together for collective impact will be as easy as possible.

If it is not convenient, people will simply choose not to participate. Objectives The objectives for Logan Together are ultimately about improving measurable outcomes for Logan's children and young people. There are a number of indicators that Logan Together tracks, and these are used to evaluate the success of the opportunity. These include reducing the amount of children who are exposed to smoking while in the womb, birth weight, child literacy levels, attendance at pre-school programs, NAPLAN achievement and others.

In a survey last year, baseline levels for these different indicators were identified, and these will be used to benchmark performance. It is hoped that all of these measures will show improvement if the different stakeholders in Logan can work together. Aside from these quantitative objectives, there is a qualitative objective that schools, parents and other stakeholders will experience increased communication and cooperation. Kania, Brown and Juster (n.d.) note that there needs to be a mindshift with respect to how different stakeholders in children view their roles.

This means encouraging more cooperation and collaboration, establishing links between.