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2012 National Conference

March 12–14, 2012

Seattle, WA

B1: Changing Our Mindset for Collective Impact

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 at 10:15 AM–11:45 AM PDT
Fifth Avenue (Grand Level)
Session Designer

Ken Thompson, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Session Description

As our understanding of what it means to collaboratively create large-scale social change matures, grantmakers’ approach to problem-solving must evolve. For example, grantmakers need to share power with other stakeholders rather than having direct control over goals and approaches, support an ecosystem of actors rather than individual nonprofits, and reward alignment and systemic results rather than individual efforts. Through a series of small group activities, discussion with funders participating in collective impact and findings from new research on this topic, participants will dive deep into the experience of funding collective impact, understand the tensions and challenges faced in funding these efforts and discuss ways to embrace the mindset changes needed to be an effective collective impact funder.

Conference Theme

Collaborative Problem Solving

Speakers

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Fay Hanleybrown, FSG
Title

Managing Director

Speaker Biography

Fay Hanleybrown leads FSG’s Seattle office and collective impact approach area. She works with private foundations, corporate clients, community foundations and non-profits to discover better ways to solve social problems. Since 2002, Hanleybrown has led over 40 consulting engagements for FSG in the areas of strategy, program design, cross-sector collaborations and evaluation. Recent clients include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft, The Ford Family Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Community Center for Education Results. She has published several articles and speaks regularly about philanthropic effectiveness, including collective impact and shared measurement. Prior to FSG, Hanleybrown was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. She holds a master's of business administration from Harvard Business School and a bachelor's, cum laude, from Princeton University.

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Ken Thompson, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Title

Program Officer

Speaker Biography

Ken Thompson is a program officer in the Pacific Northwest Initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He makes grants in the Initiative’s Education Pathways area where he is lead on the collective impact work in Seattle, an effort to increase educational attainment 'from cradle to college.' Employed at the foundation since 1998, his primary expertise is in youth programs, emphasizing academic support and dropout prevention programs at the K12 and postsecondary levels. Previously, Thompson managed, designed and sunsetted the foundation’s Community Access to Technology grant program, which supported technology access programs in Washington State. Prior to that, he worked on the Foundation’s US Library Program. Before joining the Foundation, he was a librarian, editor and arts administrator.

Thompson received a master's of library and information science from the University of Washington and a master's of fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Alina Turner, Calgary Homeless Foundation
Title

Vice President, Strategy

Speaker Biography

Alina Turner is the VP, Strategy at the Calgary Homeless Foundation, the organization leading the implementation of Calgary’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. In this role, she is responsible for building a System of Care focused on ending homelessness, monitoring and evaluation of the Plan to ensure implementation stays on target, adapts to changing conditions, and improves with best practices. She leads the CHF’s research on homelessness, strategic planning, and policy development. Alina also oversees the CHF's $35 million program investments, including allocation, performance management and compliance monitoring. As part of this work, she led the development of CHF’s System Planning Framework, which includes the implementation of common performance and quality assurance standards across funded agencies.

She has worked in a variety of capacities in the academic and non-profit sectors on immigrant, poverty and homelessness issues for 11 years. Alina is also PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Calgary, where her research focuses on immigration, housing careers and housing stress across Calgary migrant communities.

Session Materials

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