Change Matrix promotes collaboration for collective impact, learning and innovation. Collaboration can enhance our work, help us address community issues, and implement community-driven solutions. But collaboration isn’t always easy. It can be hard to know what collaboration should look like, since collaborative groups can take many forms. Through our work with states and communities, the Change Matrix team has experienced and supported different types of collaboration and the recognizes the value of each type. This tool attempts to highlight some of the most popular types of collaborative groups. While there are no clear-cut definitions and this list is not exhaustive, we present a few key considerations as you are forming your group.
Resource Links:
- Network: Networks and Communities of Practice: What is the difference?
- Community of Practice (CoP): Introduction to Communities of Practice from Wenger-Trayner | Defining a Community of Practice (pdf) | Communities of Practice Questions and Answers from World Bank | Video: What is a Community of Practice?
- Learning Community: Key Concept – Learning Communities from Harvard University
- Learning Network: Learning Networks Resource Center from USAID
- Workgroup: Work Groups and Teams in Organizations
- Coalition: Coalition Building – Starting a Coalition from Community Tool Box | Coalitions – State and Community Interventions from the CDC
General resource links:
- Developing an Organizational Structure
- Collective Impact Framework
- Collective Impact – one strategy for collaborative groups
- Fact Sheet: When to Collaborate
- How to Develop Group Norms
- Considerations for Virtual Teams
- Increasing Participation and Membership: guidance for increasing participation and engaging stakeholders in change efforts.
- Evolution of Wenger’s Concept of Community of Practice
- Creating Culture: Promising Practices of Successful Movement Networks
What are some other group types and considerations? We would love to hear from you. After all, through collaboration, we can often generate a more meaningful outcomes!
