Collective impact initiatives aim to address a range of challenges in communities, such as poverty, health disparities, and economic inequality. Because complex problems require cross-sector collaborations, collective impact work involves forging new partnerships to change mindsets, relationships, and systems. Yet there’s no single path or roadmap to success. So what tools can collective impact initiative partners use to support their work?

For the past four years, the Central Valley Community Foundation (CVCF) has served as the backbone organization to Fresno DRIVE (Developing the Region’s Inclusive and Vibrant Economy), a collective impact initiative aimed at fostering inclusive economic development in California’s Central Valley—one of the lowest-income regions in the country. A 10-year regional investment plan, the Fresno DRIVE Initiative was developed with input from a 300-person steering committee representing more than 150 organizations. The plan includes 14 initiatives across three areas—human capital, economic development, and neighborhoods—each with a range of cross-sector policy and program actions.

In support of DRIVE, CVCF adopted John Kania’s six essential conditions of collective impact, such as a common agenda and a commitment to centering equity. CVCF also applied a “results framework” approach to help DRIVE working groups refine their program plans, prepare for evaluation, and operationalize those conditions. Below, we share insights from DRIVE on how policymakers, practitioners, and community-based organizations can apply a results framework to guide program activities and track the outcomes of their collective impact work.

What is a results framework?

A results framework provides a graphic representation of the “cause-and-effect” logic (PDF) to show how various interventions and initiatives can achieve their long-term objectives. Like a traditional logic model, a results framework sets forth key strategies and intermediary results needed to achieve long-term objectives, and it identifies short-term goals and activities connected to each.

A results framework focuses not just on an initiative’s outputs (such as finished activities or deliverables); it forces partners to ask, “What day-to-day activities will help us realize our longer-term goals?” The framework also incorporates a timeline, illustrating the longitudinal program design.

Finally, unlike a logic model—which is often developed by a sole program manager or evaluator—the results framework approach is intended to be collaborative. Though results frameworks haven’t been widely applied in collective impact work, the emphasis on collaboration makes this approach especially helpful for building consensus across diverse stakeholders.

Evidence from research and practice shows the range of potential benefits from developing a results framework. They can help illustrate a common agenda via agreed-upon program objectives and strategies, show how each partner contributes with mutually reinforcing activities, set the stage for shared measurement, succinctly capture key program elements, and allow teams to methodically assess whether they have incorporated equity across program activities and goals.

What did Fresno DRIVE learn about applying a results framework?

In 2022, each of DRIVE’s 14 initiatives developed a results framework using a collaborative process. The approach, though time-intensive, supported consensus on implementation approaches and expected results. The DRIVE working groups, in partnerships with CVCF and its evaluation consultant, were tasked to critically evaluate how their proposed programs and projects would address systematic inequities (PDF). The results framework, which clearly lays out key strategies and actions, made it easier for partners to see opportunities to revise programmatic goals and actions to support equity.

Since 2018, the Urban Institute has been working with Fresno DRIVE as part of the Shared Prosperity Partnership to explore lessons from DRIVE’s experience. Other collective impact initiatives could consider the following lessons when starting a similar process implementing a results framework:

• Set data-driven objectives: The DRIVE working group leaders started the process by defining the long-term objectives, generally at the population level, and setting a time frame, usually around 10 years. When setting population indicators of inclusive growth, CVCF was guided by the 24 indicators proposed in the Urban Institute’s report, Boosting Upward Mobility: Metrics to Inform Local Action. These metrics provided DRIVE working group leaders with an evidence-based foundation to establish priorities, set targets, and evaluate progress over time.
• Select feasible strategies: In developing long-term objectives supported by intermediary results, most DRIVE working groups chose around three strategies that would catalyze impacts at the individual, social and relational, and systems levels. For example, the DRIVE Betting Big on Small Businesses of Color working group developed strategies to support people through a business incubator, build social capital through networking and mentoring, and change systems through policies that level the playing field for contractors of color.
• Identify concrete implementation actions: The longer-term objectives and intermediate strategies rely on dozens of short-term activities, which, in turn, involve a range of actors and organizations to ensure these strategies generate the result framework’s objectives. CVCF and the DRIVE working groups checked the logic of their framework to ensure each level of the framework built toward the next higher objective. Given that equity serves as the cornerstone for DRIVE’s theory of change, DRIVE’s Race Equity Committee independently reviewed the results framework from each working group with a specific eye for how to enhance community engagement, power shifting, and equity across all strategies and activities.

Overall, Fresno DRIVE’s experience shows how results frameworks can be a useful tool for initiatives working on inclusive economic development or other collective impact work.