Bringing an Equity Lens to Collective Impact

Inequities along the lines of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other background characteristics  shape the complex problems that collective impact initiatives aspire to change, from the educational to the environmental, from economic to health related. Without rigorous attention to persistent inequities, our initiatives risk ineffectiveness, irrelevance, and improvements that cannot be sustained. We argue that an explicit equity lens is an essential component of all five characteristics of collective impact initiatives.