Legal Aid of West Virginia contracted with Collective Impact to provide grant evaluation services for its School and Community Legal Partnership (SCLP) project. The evaluation will inform the two broad project goals by: (1) assessing the replicability and effectiveness of the SCLP project, and (2) evaluating how the legal assistance provided in the SCLP project impacted the clients that participated. The School and Community Legal Partnership (SCLP) will seek to jump-start a change in West Virginia’s pro bono culture by engaging large law firm attorneys, and their associates, in a community-focused pro bono project that provides civil legal assistance to families with children attending Mary C, Snow Elementary in Charleston, WV. The project will also increase the amount of legal assistance provided to low income families with at risk children by working in a holistic manner with school and community partners for on-site legal assistance and referrals.
Mountwest Community & Technical College (MCTC) contracted with Collective Impact to provide professional assessment services to support its Attendance Pays Project. MCTC is a public institution of the West Virginia Community and Technical College System. MCTC wanted to understand how better to improve and streamline its attendance tracking and reporting process for faculty, students, financial aid, counselors, and other stakeholders. The Attendance Pays Assessment Project was carried out over a 5 month period and involved a review of internal attendance policy documents, data systems currently used for attendance reporting and tracking, stakeholder interviews for information collection, and a review of “best practices” used at colleges and universities across the country.
“I’ve worked with three communities that have had strategic plans done by Collective Impact. In all three the planning process and subsequent document provided structure for locals to move forward, often with significant projects. It is no wonder that they have repeat business and a good reputation with these folks.” ~ Herk Conner – Executive Director, Doddridge County Economic Development Authority, West Union, WV
The Teachers College of Columbia University was the first and largest graduate school of education in the United States and is perennially ranked among the nation’s best. With financial support from the Wallace Foundation, the Teachers College engaged in research relating to collective engagement around education reform. The report describes development in the new generation of cross-sector collaborations for education and presents findings from a scan of initiatives across the United States. In this report, Collective Impact, LLC is identified as the first entity to coin the term "Collective Impact" in the early 2000's (page 6, footnote 7). This is an instructive example of how cross-sector collaborations have been bubbling up for several decades. Read the article by clicking here!
