The Coalition’s vision for FaCT is to enhance the foundational work of the past 20 years and begin to use the FaCT platform to develop a collective impact model that identifies organizations, programs, and other resources for strengthening families in Orange County and sets out shared goals and evaluation for measuring progress.

Going beyond more traditional nonprofit collaboration, collective impact requires all participants to have a shared vision for change – one that includes a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed-upon actions. Collective impact initiatives typically have five characteristics that produce true alignment and lead to powerful results: 1) a common agenda, 2) shared measurement systems, 3) mutually reinforcing activities, 4) continuous communication, and 5) backbone support organizations.

Already structured to be a critical backbone organization focused on shared measurement and promotion of best practices among its FRCs, FaCT has many of the components in place to drive such collective impact planning. While acknowledging that FaCT must work inside the parameters of its public funding, we believe that the platform itself is primed to play a larger role in the system of care.

To understand that role, as well as the landscape of public, private, and philanthropic agencies working alongside FaCT, the Coalition will be engaging FaCT partners and a variety of other stakeholders in developing a regional theory of change that accounts for all players and focuses on reducing child abuse across the county. This process will result in a shared vision for impact and benchmarks for progress that focus short-term and intermediate outcomes and target community-wide change.

While we are excited at the potential of FaCT to set a foundation for collective impact, we also recognize the need to maintain FaCT’s existing supports for FRCs and their direct services. Given this balance, the FaCT Coalition has integrated the following steps into our contract:

• We have formally included – Charitable Ventures  – in FAS services, as well as several subcontractors, which spreads functionality across a larger number of stakeholders as a method for initiating the collective impact conversation.
• We have added collective impact planning activities, such as mapping regional assets and developing a countywide theory of change, as a part of our work plan for the year.
• We are already engaging new stakeholders, particularly from the philanthropic sector, and will be assessing new resource opportunities, such as federal grants.

We will continue technical assistance, training, and advocacy and community engagement services for FRCs to advance FaCT’s current theory of change: strengthening agencies and communities, resulting in stronger children and families and reduced risk of abuse and neglect.