What role does gga serve?

 Backbone Support Organizations are defined in a winter 2011 publication of Stanford Social Innovation Review as follows.  

Link:  Collective Impact (ssir.org)  

“Creating and managing collective impact requires a separate organization and staff with very specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative. Coordination takes time, and none of the participating organizations has any to spare.  The expectation that collaboration can occur without a supporting infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons why it fails.   

The backbone organization requires a dedicated staff separate from the participating organizations who can plan, manage, and support the initiative through ongoing facilitation, technology and communications support, data collection and reporting, and handling the myriad logistical and administrative details needed for the initiative to function smoothly. Strive has simplified the initial staffing requirements for a backbone organization to three roles: project manager, data manager, and facilitator.   

Collective impact also requires a highly structured process that leads to effective decision making. In the case of Strive, staff worked with General Electric (GE) to adapt for the social sector the Six Sigma process that GE uses for its own continuous quality improvement. The Strive Six Sigma process includes training, tools, and resources that each SSN [organization or system] uses to define its common agenda, shared measures, and plan of action, supported by Strive facilitators to guide the process.   

In the best of circumstances, these backbone organizations embody the principles of adaptive leadership: the ability to focus people’s attention and create a sense of urgency, the skill to apply pressure to stakeholders without overwhelming them, the competence to frame issues in a way that presents opportunities as well as difficulties, and the strength to mediate conflict among stakeholders.”