DO/ABLE joins United Way Guelph Wellington Dufferin and its partners as they determine the kind of impact they want to achieve as a network.
By Kris Cummings & Suhanya Ketheeswaran
United Way Guelph Wellington Dufferin’s community partners are often grouped by the focus area or stream under which they access funding. The complementary nature of their mandates means partners within a focus area are often familiar with each other. They may sit on steering committees and at community tables together. Or they might partner on big events and initiatives. But they haven’t typically been convened by United Way to work as a network.
The Poverty to Possibility Network: leveraging shared mandates to tackle a worsening issue
The challenge: In 2022, United Way Guelph Wellington Dufferin brought together the partners within one of its funding focus areas, including organizations fostering greater food, housing, and income security. The group has been called the Poverty to Possibility Network. And it was motivated by a compelling inquiry: can we produce a greater impact for our community by working differently – and can this attract more support for our work? This particular group of partners hadn’t been engaged by United Way like this before. And everyone involved wanted to make sure they didn’t duplicate other work in the community.
The solution: United Way engaged DO/ABLE as a third party consultant to help facilitate the network through a collective impact planning process. DO/ABLE worked with the Guelph and Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination and the United Way itself to establish and facilitate the network.
The first phase of the project saw the group develop a shared goal, a theory of change for working together, and initial priorities for action. In the next phase, DO/ABLE supported the group through a shared budgeting process. DO/ABLE has since been facilitating ongoing meetings of the partners as they plan and prioritize future elements of their work, seek to attract resources, and implement their theory of change.
The outcome: The Poverty to Possibility Network develops a blueprint for collective impact that drives action and attracts new funding
Though this initiative is ongoing, a number of benefits have already materialized:
- the group has defined and built consensus around a shared goal and blueprint for moving forward
- pre-existing relationships between colleagues have been deepened
- members within the network have increased trust – they look out for one another, share resources, and help each other troubleshoot
- the difficult conversations that took place at the outset of the process allowed the group to get clear on what they could do together and build the trust and readiness needed to implement things quickly – this in turn has allowed them to take advantage of unexpected funding opportunities and emerging donations
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