Making a Commitment to Strengthen Backbone Organizations
Communities and organizations around the world are adopting a different mindset to achieve large-scale systemic change through collective impact, a concept that was first introduced in the winter 2011 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review and more recently discussed on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog. As cross-sector groups engage more deeply in this practice, funders and practitioners alike find ourselves probing for answers 
to the question: How do you do this work well?
In Cincinnati, the collective impact model is a living, breathing—and evolving—practice. The community has embraced this approach to accelerating change across systems. And the community’s leaders are committing to making this ambitious work succeed.
GCF is leading the way for collective impact in the region. As a funder, GCF believes that providing “backbone support” (see chart) which propels collective impact efforts is critically important. The foundation has taken a bold, if not “sexy,” step by investing in the support infrastructure of collective impact—the backbone organization itself—to accelerate change. If the Foundation is to succeed, everyone must understand what backbone organizations are and how they can be most effective.
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