Lesson-76535-6

The collective impact approach was successfully adapted to the Colombian context. The project staff realized from the beginning that, because of the Colombian context of the project, the collective impact approach would have to be adapted. This approach for addressing complex social issues is comprised of five conditions: a common agenda, continuous communication, a shared measurement system, mutually reinforcing activities and backbone support. The Pilares project adapted the concept of “backbone support,” because there were no natural leaders among the civil society organizations who participated in the project. Instead of having one single backbone organization, it made sense to have a committee to lead the project. Each solidarity network nominated a group of organizations to be the “ancla” (“anchor”). This structure worked very well; the civil society organizations proved to be very motivated and to have a high level of commitment to work collectively to achieve the project outcomes.