Eric Nee
Managing Editor
Stanford Social Innovation Review

June 12, 2012--Collective impact—the idea that organizations from different sectors of society need to join together to tackle pressing social problems—captured people’s imagination as soon as the concept first appeared in print in the winter 2011 issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review. One and one-half years later the idea continues to gather momentum.

Earlier this week I attended several events—the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) 2012 Corporate Philanthropy Summit in New York City, the White House Council for Community Solutions meeting in Washington, D.C., and a roundtable on collective impact hosted by SSIR also in Washington, D.C.—where collective impact was front and center in the discussions.

In New York City more than 200 executives in charge of corporate philanthropy at many of the word’s largest corporations (including General Electric, Credit Suisse, McDonald’s, Total S.A., and IBM) gathered for two days of discussions. One of the sessions, “Making Multi-Sector Collaborations Work: Lessons from the White House Council for Community Solutions,” focused on the role that business can play in fostering collective impact solutions.