Often in Cooperative Extension we have considered our content expertise to be our primary value that we bring to communities. However, we also bring value that is perhaps even more critical in today’s society in our ability to bring people together for meaningful dialogue that leads to positive outcomes for the complex situations facing our communities. Merrill Ewert, retired Cornell Extension Director, identified the contributions we make in Cooperative Extension that are process oriented as being those associated with the educational approaches of facilitation and transformative education (Franz & Townson, 2008). He identified the content-oriented contributions as service and content transmission. The high process approaches are most consistent with an engaged model of program delivery (Vines, 2018) and are the areas in which Cooperative Extension is most likely one, if not the only, contributor in this area in many communities.
Action Item 1:
Take five minutes to identify and write down the expertise that you provide to your team. Then, as a team, share and compile a list of expertise that is represented. Now, as a team, identify other expertise that will be needed/ useful in resolving the problem you are trying to solve? Finally, devise a plan to identify who has the missing expertise and who in the existing team will contact the additional team members to invite them to be a part of the team.
PART FIVE: USE OF COLLECTIVE IMPACT
Collective impact as described by Kania and Kramer (2011) has been suggested as a theoretical approach to be used by Cooperative Extension (Niewolny & Archibald, 2015) in engaged practice (Vines, 2018). In this section, we describe the elements of Collective Impact and relate them to logic models and the Impact Collaborative Project Roadmap.
To achieve success using collective impact, Kania and Kramer (2011, The Five Conditions of Collective Success section, para1) identify five conditions which must be provided:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
A common agenda
Shared measurement systems Mutually reinforcing activities Continuous communication Backbone support organizations
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