Achieving Community Change Through A New Framework: An Evaluation to Measure Engagement and Understanding of Strategy Maps

Veronica Sallaz, California State University, Monterey Bay

Abstract

A large collaborative effort to do a community assessment in Monterey County, California, identified goals and priorities in the areas of health, safety, education, and economic self-sufficiency (Impact Monterey, 2015). There were several initiatives and collaboratives working towards improving outcomes in the four areas, but there was recognition that there was a need to coordinate efforts both within and across the goals. In order to integrate their work and improve consistency across initiatives to drive collective impact and community change, the Network participants in Monterey County created four strategy maps which support a collective impact approach where participants develop mutually reinforcing activities with a common agenda and have a shared measurement system, continuous communication, and backbone support (Hanleybrown, Kania & Kramer, 2012). The strategy maps are an information management framework for Monterey County organizations to use which has a shared system enabling evidence-based, data and results-driven actions to drive community changes. A process evaluation project to identify participants’ engagement in the countywide strategy map development process was conducted. This project provides feedback on participants’ engagement levels and understanding of the strategy maps. The results will be used to improve the engagement process for Network participants with the goal of increasing the likelihood of achieving the community goals through collective impact.