PERFORM Collective is a digital collaboration tool that provides a shared enterprise software platform for organizations looking to coordinate initiatives, manage projects, streamline communication, and measure collective impact.
The Challenge of Collective Impact
Independent Variable has spent years supporting coalitions of organizations, community members, and government partners working together to achieve their shared goals. No matter the project details, a few common barriers to collaboration continue to surface:
- Fragmented technology: Cross-organizational goals are not always paired with cross-organizational technology solutions. In many Collectives, this is not an oversight but a natural byproduct of what is needed to accomplish daily work functions: every partner organization must maintain its own email platform, event calendar, and data and workflow management system(s). Without a natural shared space, event coordination and communication often falls to whichever person or organization is willing to: 1) build and manage a new Collective website or social media page, or 2) receive, manage, and repost all Collective communications to an existing page. This work rarely scales.
- Lost momentum: Collective work is often a labor of love sandwiched between pressing primary job duties. With members meeting on a semi-regular basis, the execution of complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives often relies on the completion of next steps scribbled in people’s notebooks or buried in email or chat threads. Without shared visibility on progress between meetings, it is easy for a group to lose track of what tasks are in motion or were supposed to commence before the next convening. Without shared success metrics, it can be difficult to hold each other accountable to a shared vision. Collective power can be lost in the noise.
A Shared Workspace Built for Collaboration
PERFORM Collective was built to remove the friction of cross-organizational collaboration. Interested parties can contact Independent Variable, and any group can be spun up as its own “tenant” inside the platform. These groups, or Collectives, are provided with a digital workspace equipped with their own logo, color scheme, and set of authenticated users who can freely share resources.
You choose, at every step, whether the work stays private to the Collective or is shared publicly.
The application has three primary parts:
- Shared Calendar
- Real-Time Dashboard
- Workflow Management Portal
Shared Calendar Application
Every member of a Collective can add events to a shared calendar, attaching flyers or other materials, and marking each event as “public” or “private.” Public events are immediately visible to anyone; private events stay within the Collective. Collectives are also able to manage lists of other variables they can attach to events, such as “Event Organizer” and “Event Category.”
After an event is submitted by an authenticated member, it posts immediately to the shared Collective calendar; no administrative approval or other third-party software is required. Collective members can also opt-in to receive email notifications when new events are created by others, reducing the need for multiple communication threads.
Anyone viewing a Collective calendar can filter events by “Organizer” or “Category” to find those of most interest. Notable events can then be added directly to a personal calendar with a single click, with all major calendar applications supported. In this fashion, all Collective partner organizations can embed the same shared calendar to their own websites, all Collective members can post events directly as they see fit, and any member of the general public can view and save public events… all regardless of differences between website or email providers.
interactive analytics Dashboard
After an event has occurred, it can be edited by any Collective member to add customizable metrics to describe its reach (# of attendees, # of giveaways, etc.). These metrics then feed directly into a Collective dashboard for tracking activities over time. Dashboard options allow for members to display all measures by different time periods (e.g., monthly, quarterly, yearly), as well as to apply filters to show either Collective or individual organizational activities.
Customized dashboard development is available from Independent Variable upon request.
Shared Workflow Management Platform
In addition to shared calendars to help coordinate events, every Collective also gets access to a shared workflow management portal to help keep group projects on track.
This portal is built around Kanban-style project management boards, with any Collective member able to create a new project board, add and assign tasks, and move tickets through a series of statuses:
Task Queue -> Ready-> In Progress->Completed.
These project management boards provide the Collective a means to divide work across multiple organizations while maintaining a shared, always-current view of what’s happening, who’s responsible, and what needs to be prioritized next.
Transparency + Flexibility, By Design
Because every calendar event and project management board can be toggled between public and private, PERFORM Collective is as useful for internal coordination as it is for public accountability. A Collective can run its day-to-day work privately while opening a window to its progress for the greater community, funders, or government partners who want to follow along, support, or participate.
The application can be maximized however Collective members deem fit amongst themselves. Those looking to scale their impacts can do so together; members without other workflow, communications, and/or data management systems may also use these tools and filters to build their own organizational capacity.
PERFORM Collective marks the next step in our work to give practitioners the tools they need to organize, design, and measure impact together — without any one person or organization carrying the load alone.
If you are part of a Collective looking for a shared home for your calendar, project management work, or design processes, reach out to our team to discuss possibilities. The application is free to use and under continuous development based upon the feedback of our partners. Custom development of any Collective-specific new features is also available by agreement.
Check out Some Partner Collectives in Action
The links below highlight some of the amazing work of our partner organizations and Collectives:
Northwest Collective: A Collective of nonprofits working to provide safe and healthy neighborhoods for residents of Northwest Philadelphia. View calendar.
Mill Creek Community Partnership: A Collective serving as a catalyst in the revitalization of the Mill Creek community through collaboration with aligned non-profits, RCOs and elected officials, accessible and innovative art-cultural programming, resource distribution and diverse engagement events. View calendar.
Youth Diversion Network: A Collective of nonprofits working to provide diversion opportunities for youth in the City of Philadelphia. View calendar.
Endangered Kind: A community-led organization that stabilizes communities, builds grassroots leadership, and advances long-term solutions that strengthen neighborhoods View calendar.
Add Your Collective to PERFORM Collective
Interested in creating a shared digital workspace for your Collective? Reach out to the Independent Variable team to discuss possibilities!