3: Collective Impact through Regenerative Development: Lessons from Green and Healthy Home Repair

Scholars in planning and leadership increasingly recognize that collaborative efforts of diverse stakeholders are required to meet the fundamental challenge of bringing out the best of our diverse humanity to collectively ensure a sustainable future. Often, these scholars have emphasized the importance of well-designed and facilitated public processes in supporting effective cross-sectoral change, implying that if planners get the process right, the desired outcomes will emerge (Christian Rammel, 2007; Healey, 2007; Innes, & Booher, 1999, 1999, 2010; C. O. Scharmer, 2009; Snowden & Boone, 2007).

In recent years, a theory of “Collective Impact” (“CI,” to distinguish the theory from common parlance) introduced by John Kania and Mark Kramer in 2009 has become increasingly referenced as a successful process model to support collaborative change. Their 2011 article “Collective Impact” in Stanford Social Innovation Review has been cited over 1000 times.¹ In it, Kania and Kramer assert that diverse stakeholders can collaboratively achieve desired outcomes in the face of complex problems by establishing five necessary conditions in a facilitated stakeholder process.