By Sonia Ospina

1. Social change leadership
for collective impact:
Lessons from the U.S.
Sonia M. Ospina
NYU/Wagner Research Center for Leadership in Action
Wise Practices in Indigenous Community
Development Symposium
THE BANFF CENTRE, Alberta, Canada
2012
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2. Collective impact…
collective achievements...
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3. A collaborative research with 92 community-based
organizations and 164 social change leaders

4. Indigenous organizations in
the LCW program (about 7%)
of )
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5. Structure of my remarks
1. What we did: a collaborative research with
leaders in social change organizations
2. What we found: leadership as collective
achievement
3. What we learned: Implications for theory and
practice
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6. Leadership for a Changing
World: 92 SCOs, 164 leaders
The LCW program (2001-2007)
Research & Documentation (2000-2009)

7. Community Voices Heard, CVH,
New York City
CVH is an organization of
low-income people,
predominantly women with
experience on welfare,
working to build power in
New York City and State to
improve the lives of our
families and communities.

8. Coalition of African, Arab, Asian, European,
and Latino Immigrants (CAAAELI), Chicago
CAAAELI aims to strengthen diverse voices of inter-generational
immigrant and refugee communities by building alliances through a
transformative process to develop grassroots power that impacts public
policy

9. People Organized in Defense of Earth and
her Resources, PODER
“We seek to empower our communities through education,
advocacy and action. Our aim is to increase the participation
of communities of color in corporate and government decision
making related to toxic pollution, economic development and
their impact on our neighborhoods.
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10. LCW organizations are social
change organizations
• A nonprofit or public service organization
• Addresses root causes not symptoms of problems
• Increases the power of marginalized groups,
communities or interests
• “a grassroots response to systemic social
problems.”
(Chetkovich & Kunreuther, 2006: 14)
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11. How are SCOs distinct
from other nonprofits?
• Work in environments of uncertainty and scarcity
• Work with constituency group, not on their behalf
• Promote participant self-determination and
autonomy
• Engage participants in decision-making and
governance
 Transform constituents into stakeholders
• Aim to transform unjust power relations that affect
constituents
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12. An ambitious research agenda
Core research team members make
Research Stream Participants Products
meaning in conversation with
members of a community
(co-researchers)
Ethnographic Inquiry: Collective Integration
Looking at leadership from the In what ways do
inside Up to 3 LCW
•Continuity participants’ communities
•Context communities trying to make
•In-depth focus/thick descriptions Ethnographies
social change
engage in the
LCW participants make meaning in
conversation with core research
work of
Narrative Inquiry: LCW participants and leadership?
Leadership Horizontal
team members
The LCW participants use representatives of their
their own voices to reflect communities Stories Analysis In what ways can
about leadership and academics and
construct meaning. practitioners co-
produce leadership
Inquiry Reports research and
Up to 2 groups of knowledge that is
Co-Operative Inquiry: 6-8 LCW valid and useful to
meaning from practice
Co-researchers (in an inquiry participants each both?
participants make
group) generate
Selected LCW
meaning/knowledge of
leadership in action.
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13. Structure of my remarks
1. What we did: a collaborative research with
leaders in social change organizations
2. What we found: leadership as collective
achievement
3. What we learned: Implications for theory and
practice
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14. … Key findings
• The work of leadership is about awakening the
community to its own strength:
• When community members see and feel
abundance in the midst of scarcity they are
ready to mobilize their collective energy
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15. … Key findings: From
scarcity to abundance
“Collective” appreciative intelligence:
“the ability to see the inherent generative potential in a given
situation and act purposively to transform potential into
outcomes”
(Thatchenkery & Metzker, 2006)
Appreciative leadership:
“the relational capacity to mobilize creative potential and turn it
into positive power…”
(Whitney, Trosten-Bloom & Rader, 2010)
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16. A framework of social change leadership in SCOs
Leadership Strategic work to construct and
drivers leverage power Change
A lived Long-term
problem
LEADERSHIP Outcomes:
Intermediate
(systemic PRACTICES outcomes: Changing
exclusion) Collective -Mental
-Technologies Capacity:
of -Individual models
Vision of - Policies
Management -Organiza
wellbeing -Core - Interorg. -Structures
and organizational
social tasks
-Relationships
justice
Basic assumptions: theory of change/ knowledge /human beings/power
Social change values: equality; solidarity; inclusion; democracy: transparency
W o r l d v i e w: “g r o u n d e d h u m a n i s m”

17. Variations in theories of
social change
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18. LCW Indigenous Awardees advanced change
through the “preservation” strategy
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19. In what ways do communities trying to make social
change engage in the work of leadership?
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20. The work of leadership
Developing many leadership practices that
help the organization
 Reframe discourse
 Bridge difference
 Unleash human energies
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21. Reframing discourse
challenging existing ‘templates’ and mental models
that contribute to make up or reinforce the
problems that the organizations are addressing

22. Gwich’in Tribes Steering
Committee
“The caribou is not just what we eat, but who we are. It is in our dances, stories, songs
and the whole way we see the world. Caribou is how we get from one year to the other”.
Sarah James
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23. People Organized in Defense of Earth and
her Resources, PODER
“…redefining environmental
issues as social and
economic justice issues,
and collectively setting our
own agenda to address these
concerns as basic human
rights.”
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24. Prompting Cognitive
shifts (Foldy, Goldman & Ospina, 2008)
• About the “issue”
• How an audience views the problem and/or the
solution
• About the constituency (those experiencing
the problem)
• How the constituency sees itself
• How one part of the constituency sees another
• How an outside audience sees the constituency

25. Bridging difference
…connecting different
worlds and worldviews
in ways that make
alliance building and
collaboration possible
Columbia River Inter-tribal Commission
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26. The Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish
Commission
The CRIFC 's mission is to ensure a unified voice in
the overall management of the fishery resources, and
as managers,
to protect reserved treaty rights
through the exercise of the
inherent sovereign powers of
the tribes
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27. Underlying assumptions
of cross-boundary work
• Recognizing the strategic value of difference
• Difference: not a problem but a key resource;
• (and managing the paradox of unity/diversity)
• Balancing (real & pervasive) power inequities
• commitment to try to “even the odds” (in favor
of the vulnerable)
• Leveraging the power of networks
• Networks=strategic tools AND manifestations
of community (and shapers of identity)
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28. Unleashing human energies
…creating the conditions to reclaim the right to
selfhood and full humanity
…and to recognize one’s power and expertise to
direct one’s life
…learning and
unlearning …
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29. How?
Creating transformative learning spaces where
participants can build their strengths
•Harness lived experience (and develop people’s
voices)
•Draw strength from culture and identity
•Distill knowledge and practice skills
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31. Leveraging the power of all practices
together: PODER goes to Court
• “…there was a time that we were all sisters and brothers, the
night sky our ceiling, the earth our mother, the sun our father,
our parents were leaders and justice our guide…”
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32. Leveraging power
Reframing discourse + Bridging difference +
Unleashing human energies =
Preparedness, readiness, willingness to
engage in action to bring the future into the
present
Leadership practices  leadership capital
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33. Structure of my remarks
1. What we did: a collaborative research with
leaders in social change organizations
2. What we found: leadership as collective
achievement
3. What we learned: Implications for theory and
practice
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34. Distinct sets of
competencies
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35. Implications for leadership
theory
• Few studies of SCO in the mainstream literature
• Missing relevant voices (and stories)  people of color,
low-income communities, indigenous groups…
• We can learn a lot about the human condition from their
experience!
• New interest on “relational forms of leadership”
and the collective dimensions of leadership
• Leaders in SCOs have been doing it for years!
• We can learn a lot about leadership from their
experience!

36. Closing thoughts
From Peter Senge:
“Ultimately, leadership is about how we shape futures
that we truly desire, as opposed to try as best we can
to cope with circumstances we believe are beyond our
control.”
“Look to the periphery, to people and places where
commitment to the status quo is low and where hearts
and minds are most open to the new.”
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37. Donald Sampson’s words
to young people
…you are the ones who will lead us
into the future. Open your hearts
and your minds. Touch the
earth, the mother of all of us.
Begin to feel the beauty in the
rhythm from a spiritual stance.
Try to understand the land, the
plants, the wildlife, not only from
a scientific standpoint, but as
your relatives, your brother and
sister.
I have hope for a new Native American relationship with this land and with our
natural resources, a hope that lies deep in the heart of our children and which will
lie in the hearts of all of our future generations.
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38. Thank you!
Want to learn more?
Research Center for Leadership in Action,
NYU/Wagner
www.wagner.nyu.edu/
leadership
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