Building for Impact: Building Sustainable Collaborations

Authors

  • Liz Weaver Co-CEO and Director, Collaborative Leadership, Tamarack Institute
  • Mike Desjardins Manager of Sustainability & Development for Communities Building Youth Futures, Tamarack

Keywords:

resilience, sustainability, community change, collaboration, community innovation, tamarack

Abstract

Creating a sustainable collaboration is usually an afterthought of the collaboration planning process than a designed and intentional practice. The Tamarack Institute, which supports more than 400 place-based collaborative planning tables, developed a useful guide that identifies 10 core factors that build sustainability and 10 resiliency practices. The ability of collaborations to identify sustainability at the beginning of their process also increases their ability to be innovative and agile. The guide includes advice for both practitioners and funders about how to build sustainability and resilience from the start in community change planning processes.

Author Biographies

Liz Weaver, Co-CEO and Director, Collaborative Leadership, Tamarack Institute

Liz Weaver is the Co-CEO of Tamarack Institute and leads the Tamarack Learning Centre. The Tamarack Learning Centre advances community change efforts by focusing on five strategic areas including collective impact, collaborative leadership, community engagement, community innovation and evaluating community impact. Liz is well-known for her thought leadership on collective impact and collaborative leadership and is the author of several popular and academic papers on the topic. She is a co-catalyst partner with the Collective Impact Forum.   In 2023, the Tamarack Institute was awarded the Collective Social Innovation award by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship for its collective leadership in contributing to ending poverty in Canada.  Liz is passionate about the power and potential of communities getting to impact on complex issues. 

Mike Desjardins, Manager of Sustainability & Development for Communities Building Youth Futures, Tamarack

Mike Desjardins is the Manager of Sustainability & Development for Communities Building Youth Futures. In this role, Mike is responsible for sustainability planning, researching and sharing best practices related to the sustainability and resilience of youth collective impact work, coaching CBYF communities on developing and implementing sustainability strategies, and measuring the impact and telling the story of social return on investment. 

He is experienced in community engagement, partnership development and stewardship, youth empowerment and engagement, stakeholder management, neighbourhood community development, facilitating collaborative action, strategic planning, co-designing and implementing youth programming and services, and conducting community-based research. 

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Published

2023-03-22

How to Cite

Weaver, L., & Desjardins, M. (2023). Building for Impact: Building Sustainable Collaborations . Social Innovations Journal, 17. Retrieved from https://socialinnovationsjournal.com/index.php/sij/article/view/5591

Issue

Vol. 17 (2023): Community Innovation: A Place-Based Approach to Social Innovation

Section

Tools to Advance Your Social and Community Innovation Practice

Categories

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Liz Weaver, Mike Desjardins (Author)

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