During times of change and uncertainty, nonprofits can find value in coming together for shared learning, peer support, and collective action. Funders can help nonprofits make progress together by supporting the design and facilitation of collective efforts that are driven by grantees’ needs.
The Healthy Food Community of Practice, facilitated by Community Wealth Partners, was a network of more than 50 organizations focused on healthy food access and consumption. The community began its work together in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic and a public racial reckoning caused massive upheaval for food access and distribution and laid bare inequities in healthy food access and consumption.
While these unexpected challenges could have led to decreased commitment to the community of practice due to new emerging priorities among participants, in fact, the opposite happened. Community members leaned on one another for new ideas and supported one another as they made pivots to their work. Through months of social distancing orders and changes to food distribution and benefits enrollment, the community of practice sustained high levels of engagement, and participants collaborated on projects that helped them work more effectively in a changing context.
A new case study authored by Engage R+D tells the story of the formation and evolution of the Healthy Food Community of Practice, including successes and challenges, and outcomes achieved. It also shares guidance around four lessons learned:
- Balance flexibility with setting near-term goals. Communities of practice need clear goals that are right-sized to the amount and duration of support available while also remaining flexible to stay responsive to participants’ needs and changing external dynamics.
- Prioritize community ownership. When community members have a voice in the direction of the work, it will be more likely to be relevant to them and they will be more likely to stay engaged.
- Flexible, multiyear funding is critical for success. Collective efforts need dedicated facilitation and coordination, which takes time and resources.
- Consider sustainability from the beginning. Funders and participants should consider from the beginning whether the vision for a collective effort is for it to be time limited or to last in perpetuity, how the collaborative’s goals align with that vision, and how the impact of the collaborative’s time together can endure regardless of how long it stays active.
“The beauty of a community of practice is driving collaboration between organizations, where normally we would be doing our work independent of each other. We’re not duplicating efforts when we’re collaborating.”
–Healthy Food Community of Practice participant
We believe providing intentional spaces for shared learning and collective action among nonprofits and funders are critical for making meaningful progress toward long-term systemic change. We hope this case study offers ideas and inspiration for similar efforts to help organizations go farther together than they could alone.