Chapter 01 of 06
Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination. Yet the faith-based world remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations. Here's the case for something better.
Based on Kania & Kramer (2011), Stanford Social Innovation Review
The numbers
conditions required for collective impact to work
Kania & Kramer, SSIR 2011
churches, ministries, and orgs in the US faith ecosystem
Gloo / Harvard / Barna
returned for every $1 invested in relational capital models
Baylor University / Open Table
of 88K patients screened at risk for social isolation
MetroHealth / Open Table, 2023
of Open Table participants report confidence in self-sufficiency
Open Table intake data
US states where Open Table's collective impact model is deployed
Open Table, 2023
The infrastructure exists. The coordination doesn't.
The Kania-Kramer framework
All participants share a vision for change, including a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed-upon actions. Not the same as everyone doing the same thing. It's shared understanding of the problem.
Collecting data and measuring results consistently across all participants ensures alignment, accountability, and the ability to learn from each other. You can't coordinate what you can't measure. And you can't measure what you haven't agreed to track.
Each participant undertakes specific activities at which they excel, coordinated with others through a plan of action. Different organizations doing different things, but all pulling in the same direction. The opposite of duplication.
Consistent and open communication across many players builds trust, assures mutual objectives, and creates common motivation. Trust is built over time through regular, in-person interaction. There are no shortcuts.
A dedicated organization with staff and specific skills serves as the backbone for the entire initiative, coordinating participating organizations and agencies. This is the most underappreciated condition. Without it, collective impact is just a nice idea.
The gap
Jeff Haanen mapped the faith-and-work movement: business-as-mission orgs, churches, chaplaincies, think tanks, conferences, capital groups, seminaries, bloggers. "This thing is an octopus. I'm sure it's all connected to a single head, but all I can see is arms flailing."
"When I talk to my peers in the faith and work movement, I'm actually not sure we agree on either the problem or the solution." Some say workplace evangelism, others job creation, others cultural renewal, others cultural retreat.
Mindy Robbins of Mission Mutual: collaborative giving unites funders around a common financial goal. Collective impact requires deeper operational alignment with shared systems, technology, and measurable goals.
450,000 faith orgs exist in the US. Almost none have a dedicated backbone entity coordinating collective efforts. Everyone's doing their own thing, measuring their own way, reporting their own metrics.
The faith ecosystem remains largely underserved by modern digital technology. Tools exist in silos. Data doesn't flow between organizations. Gloo's research with Harvard and Barna shows the scale of what's possible when you connect the dots.
The Faith Driven Entrepreneur landscape report found capacity builders are "relatively small-scale and fragmented." Global Collab (2019) was formed to create collective impact toward 1M Christian entrepreneurs, but there's a long way to go.
Proof of concept
Open Table deploys relational and social capital as collective impact in 33 states. Their model maps directly onto all five Kania-Kramer conditions: a common agenda (individual flourishing), shared measurement (Baylor-validated intake surveys), mutually reinforcing activities (chair positions for housing, education, jobs), continuous communication (weekly in-person meetings), and backbone support (the Open Table organization itself).
The result: $20.07 ROI per $1 invested, 95% self-sufficiency rate, and nearly one million volunteer hours invested. When the five conditions are met, the math works.
Open Table: 33 states, $20 ROI per $1, Baylor-validated
City Gate network: 15 cities, $60M combined budgets
South Africa: 5 Kingdom orgs building collaborative framework
Collective Impact Labs: backbone org with Global.Church Alliance
Global Collab (FDE): toward 1M Christian entrepreneurs
The FC take
Jeffrey Walker, Stanford Social Innovation Review
The Christian nonprofit world doesn't lack money, organizations, or passion. It lacks coordination. The same insight that Kania and Kramer brought to the social sector in 2011 applies with even more force to the faith ecosystem: isolated organizations, no matter how well-funded, cannot solve systemic problems.
What's needed are backbone organizations that serve as honest brokers between partners, shared measurement systems that let organizations learn from each other, and the humility to admit that no single ministry can do it alone.
The Open Table model proves it works. The question is whether we'll build the infrastructure to do it at scale.
Explore the research
Chapter 02
The partnership continuum from extractive to redemptive. Mike Mannina, CEF 2021.
Chapter 03
Why fragmentation is the faith-work movement's biggest problem. Jeff Haanen, Denver Institute 2017.
Chapter 04
Collaborative giving is not collective impact. Mindy Robbins, Mission Mutual / Missio Nexus 2025.
Chapter 05
The fragmented landscape of faith-driven entrepreneur support. FDE Landscape Report 2022.
Chapter 06
450,000 orgs, 7 flourishing factors, and the technology to connect them. Christianity Today / Gloo 2025.
Common questions