The Future is Collective Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 2025

Network level Local collaboratives are supported through four issue-based Networks for Change in Canada and the US: Communities Ending Poverty, Communities Building Belonging, Communities Building Youth Futures and Community Climate Transitions.Action level Tamarack supports 180 local collaboratives that bring together multi-sectoral partners and lived experience experts to develop and lead place-based, multi-strategy community plans. Additionally, changemakers from across the world build capacity in five interconnected practice areas to contribute to community- and systems-level impact. Supporting level Tamarack has a team of employees who explore, organize, sense-make and codify, and amplify and advocate in support of the local collaboratives and networks for change. Vision: Tamarack is dedicated to ending poverty in all its forms. Tamarack supports individuals and communities to change systems to end poverty, create sustainable and equitable climate transitions, inspire a sense of belonging and community, and improve opportunities with and for youth. Method: Tamarack supports four Networks for Change which unite local collaboratives working towards equitable outcomes at a whole-community scale. Local collaboratives draw upon Tamarack’s expertise in five key skills areas to drive change collectively: 1) collaborative governance, 2) community engagement, 3) shared leadership, 4) community innovation and 5) participatory learning and evaluation. With Tamarack’s coaching, tools and consultation, changemakers and collaboratives develop their own localized, unique approaches. Tamarack finds that local collaboratives generally move through four development stages: 1) building readiness, 2) mobilizing for community-wide action, 3) implementing and adapting, and 4) sustaining and renewing. Principles: Communities and changemakers connected to Tamarack are guided by seven key principles. Collaboratives work to: 1) be accountable to a shared, measurable, population-level impact and equity gap in a defined geography; 2) work towards a shared outcome target within a specific time frame; 3) include diverse perspectives; 4) align a diversity of human, financial and other contributions towards the shared outcome; 5) centre those with lived experience of the outcome; 6) build understanding of the histories behind and root causes of prioritized equity gaps; and 7) start with community leadership and other community assets.15 Practices: Tamarack encourages a set of practices in each of the five areas previously listed, such as creating and holding accountability to partnership agreements, mapping the landscape, naming a community-defined goal, creating a measurement framework, developing a collaborative governance structure that supports the framework, publishing a community plan and reporting back on it to the broad community. However, each community is unique, and Tamarack’s model is to share evidence and patterns rather than be prescriptive. At the same time, Tamarack connects and convenes communities regularly as a network to share learning, commiserate and support one another, amplify each other’s work and organize towards levers of change that are national or regional in nature.Collective architecture The collective pathway 15. As recorded in Tamarack Institute. (2024). Community-Driven, Place-Based Change. https://www.tamarackcommunity.ca/articles/community-driven-place- based-change. The Future is Collective: Case Studies of Collective Social Innovation 63