Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

To build understanding of the potential of cross-sector collaborations to address complex social problems, this paper investigates the relationship between the organizational form a collaboration takes and how it frames the issues it addresses. While researchers have examined organizational forms and collaborative frames, few have studied the relationship between the two. The relationship is important because aspects of collaborative governance structures, policies, and practices (i.e., a collaboration’s organizational form) influence and are influenced by how collaborative partners frame (or define) a problem and then act on it (Nowell 2010).

This paper reports on a mixed methods study of local partnerships using the Collective Impact (CI) model to improve public education. The CI model convenes influential institutions from the nonprofit, public, and private sectors to pursue a common agenda to improve population outcomes (Kania & Kramer 2011). In the education field, the Strive Together Network uses a framework derived from the CI model to focus collaboration on improving specific indicators of children’s academic development from “cradle-to-career.” By 2019, nearly 70 communities in 31 states had adopted the framework (Strive Together 2019).

We conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with the staff and partners of two community collaborations that have used the Strive Together framework over the past decade. We then triangulated data from these case studies with our analysis of web sites from 12 additional Strive Together collaborations.

Because Strive Together collaborations include diverse partners from different sectors with distinct views about purposes and best practices in public education, we anticipated considerable local variation in how collaborations framed public education problems and solutions. However, the web sites we studied featured vague or nonexistent problem frames and considerable homogeneity in how they framed desirable solutions and outcomes. The organizational form of the Strive Together framework thus may substantially constrain the frames collaborative partners use to understand and address local education issues. Our case studies, however, suggest the possibility of a reciprocal relationship between a collaboration’s organizational form and frames.

Both case-study sites emphasized data-driven decisions using specific indicators, but the relationship between their frames and organizational forms differed. Site A chose a single indicator (aggregate graduation rates) to frame its problem, solutions, and outcomes. Site A’s “backbone” staff and Leadership Council selected the indicator themselves, and promoted cradle-to-career programming explicitly to improve other academic indicators. Site B selected a broader frame – improving equity in public education – and used racially diverse, top-down and bottom-up decision structures to identify problems, provisional solutions, and indicators of progress. Site A’s frames focused narrowly on one indicator, and its organizational form followed the CI model’s emphasis on local elite governance and backbone staff, while Site B’s frames and organizational form both reflected overarching commitments to racial equity in programming as well as governance.

We conclude that the CI organizational form constrains but does not determine the frames that local collaborators use to motivate and focus their efforts to improve public education. Site B suggests that creative framing can even prompt the redesign of existing collaborative organizational forms.