The “Civic Connector” is a daily online forum during the 66th Annual National Conference on Citizenship. Each day, NCoC.net will feature commentary from a civic sector leader. These discussions will contribute to conversations throughout the Annual Conference Events.

The September 20 commentator is Bobbi Silten, Chief Foundation Officer of Gap Inc. and Chair of the Reimagining Service Coalition. Bobbi’s “Civic Connector” question was “When addressing public problems, is our goal always building consensus or finding common ground? Should it be?”
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Collaboration can be powerful in developing solutions for community challenges, but it also requires an investment of time, a willingness to find common ground, the patience to work through differences, and leadership. Lots of leadership.

So when should you collaborate and when should you go it alone? I usually begin by asking if the problem or challenge can be addressed by a single player and have impact? Or does the system need to be changed? If it’s the latter, then working with others is critical. For example, a group of service leaders got together to collectively work on increasing the impact of volunteerism through a cross-sector collaborative called Reimagining Service. While we can all individually lead our organizations to make progress on volunteer impact, we recognize that the broader ecosystem of volunteering needs to evolve and are looking to all sectors for solutions. If organizations that use volunteers change their approach to deepen their social impact, but the organizations that provide volunteers don’t, it’s hard to make the change happen and to make the change stick.

I have found that the best way to have collaborations work is to understand both the collective goal as well as the individual goals of the people and/or organizations that are involved. While we all work toward our shared goal, the leadership of a collaborative also needs to be mindful that all the partners are getting something they need out of the collective effort as well. For some, the motivation may purely be the shared objective and for others it may be a balance between the collective and their own organizational goals.

Collaboration is not always easy, but it plays an important role in realizing social change. And if we need to change the system, we need to work together.

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You’ve read what Bobbi has to say, now we want to hear from you... “When addressing public problems, is our goal always building consensus or finding common ground? Should it be?”