Data’s role in the Collaborative Change Cycle

Collaboration for Impact has developed the Collaborative Change Cycle framework to help community changemakers collaborate to address complex social issues. It is based on five interlinked phases of work, shown below. The change cycle journey is not often linear.

Collaborative initiatives tend to move back and forth between phases, or may be at different phases of the cycle for different components of their community transformation roadmap.

Discover how data plays a crucial role for each phase of the cycle, access tools and resources to help your collaborative become more data-driven, and turn your systems-transformation vision into reality.

5 Phases of the Collaborative Change Cycle

Overview of how data is used by Collective Impact Initiatives

A key condition for collective impact is shared learning and measurement. Communities access, analyse and share data to shape actions and create better outcomes as the collective impact initiative matures. View more detail on how data benefits each phase on each of the individual cycle phase pages.

Readiness & Building Foundations

Communities being using Open data to understand local context and shape common agenda. They build a shared understanding of the value of sharing data and working in partnership and start creating an evidence-based ‘case for change’ and narrative.

Creating a Shared
Vision

Communities share and collaborate on data for activity design and collecting data for shared measurement. Formal commitments are set in place including MEL Frameworks. The understanding of data needs and focus on combined impact continues to grow as the community Theory of Change emerges.

Scaling Up and Transformation

With Data Infrastructure now in place, the community has a self-designed and run shared measurement and shared learning environment. This creates a strategic learning and evaluation ecosystem which can be scaled. They can now move to a place of self-determination for improved outcomes and further evolve relationships with Government.