Why Collective Impact matters: Lessons from Kauffman’s first implementation investment

Some of the most significant barriers to economic mobility cannot be solved by any one organization – regardless of its expertise, resources, or commitment. Challenges such as strengthening the educator workforce, expanding career pathways, or improving economic opportunity require coordinated action across sectors, sustained collaboration, and a shared commitment to long-term change.

That belief is what inspired the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s Collective Impact initiative.

As part of the Foundation’s strategic refresh, Collective Impact was introduced as a new grantmaking approach designed to support coalitions working together to address complex, systems-level challenges. Rather than funding individual organizations to pursue parallel solutions, the initiative invests in the partnerships, infrastructure, governance, and shared accountability needed to create lasting change.

Today, that work reaches an important milestone.

Following its inaugural planning cycle, the Foundation has approved its first Collective Impact implementation investment – a three-year, $13 million grant to Teach KC, a regional coalition working to recruit, prepare, plan, and retrain educators across the Kansas City region.

While Teach KC’s implementation marks an exciting next chapter, the broader story is about something even larger: strengthening the region’s capacity to solve complex problems together.

Economic mobility challenges are rarely solved by a single organization acting alone. Our Collective Impact initiative was created to support coalitions capable of building lasting systems change. Over the past year, six remarkable coalitions strengthened partnerships and developed bold strategies to address some of our region’s most pressing challenges. Teach KC demonstrated a compelling regional approach to strengthening the educator workforce while creating new pathways to economic mobility.

Dr. DeAngela Burns-Wallace
President and CEO, Kauffman Foundation

Why Collective Impact?

The Collective Impact framework, first introduced through the Stanford Social Innovation Review, recognizes that meaningful systems change happens when organizations align around a common agenda, shared measures of success, coordinated action, continuous learning, and strong backbone leadership.

These ideas align closely with the Foundation’s vision of advancing equitable economic mobility.

Many of the barriers limit opportunity today – including workforce shortages, educational attainment, entrepreneurship, and career mobility – cross institutional and geographic boundaries. They cannot be addressed by any single organization working independently.

Collective Impact asks an important question: What becomes possible when organizations choose to solve these challenges together?

Building capacity before funding implementation

In late 2024, the Foundation invited regional coalitions to apply for Collective Impact planning grants. The response reflected both the need and the opportunity.

More than 60 coalitions applied, representing hundreds of organizations committed to improving economic mobility throughout the Kansas City region.

Six coalitions were selected to participate in the inaugural planning phase. Importantly, the planning grants were never intended to be simply a preliminary competition for implementation funding. They represented a strategic investment in helping coalitions build the capacity required for long-term systems change.

Over the course of a year, each coalition strengthened partnerships, refined governance structures, developed implementation strategies, built evaluation frameworks, and explored what sustainable collaboration would require over multiple years.

The Foundation supported this work through planning grant funding, technical assistance, executive coaching, research and evaluation support, and a shared Community of Practice that brought coalition leaders together to learn from one another while strengthening relationships across the region.

That investment created value well beyond any future funding decisions.

What we learned

As the Foundation’s first Collective Impact initiative, the planning year provided important insights – not only for participating coalitions, but also for the Foundation itself. Several lessons emerged.

Systems change begins with relationships.

Successful collaboration depends on trust. Coalitions need time to establish shared leadership, clarify decision-making, align around common outcomes, and build confidence among partners before launching implementation.

Strong governance is as important as strong ideas.

Innovative solutions matter, but lasting change also requires the structures that allow diverse organizations to make decisions together, measure progress, and remain accountable over time.

Technical support accelerates readiness.

Planning funding alone is not enough. Coaching, facilitation, evaluation expertise, and opportunities for peer learning helped coalitions strengthen both strategy and execution while building leadership capacity across organizations.

Planning is an investment, not a phase.

Perhaps the most important lesson is that planning itself creates lasting value. Throughout the inaugural cycle, coalitions developed new partnerships, tested ideas, strengthened regional relationships, and generated knowledge that will continue benefitting the Kansas City community regardless of implementation outcomes.

One of the most important outcomes of this inaugural cycle is what we learned together. The planning grants strengthened regional partnerships, deepened implementation readiness, and provided valuable insight into how we can best support coalitions working to create lasting systems change. The planning grants were a strategic investment in regional capacity. Those lessons will continue shaping our work in the years ahead.

Allison Greenwood
Chief Impact and Strategy Officer, Kauffman Foundation

Why Teach KC?

Following the yearlong planning process, the Foundation completed a comprehensive review of implementation readiness, coalition strength, systems-level impact, sustainability, and alignment with the Foundation’s strategic priorities.

Teach KC emerged with a compelling regional strategy focused on one of the most important drivers of long-term economic mobility: the educator workforce.

Led by BLAQUE Kansas City, Teach KC brings together nonprofit organizations, school districts, higher education institutions, and career advancement for educators across Cass, Clay, Jackson, Johnson, and Wyandotte counties.

Rather than addressing isolated aspects of the teacher pipeline, the coalition is building coordinated regional systems designed to strengthen the profession while creating greater opportunity for educators themselves.

The Foundation’s three-year implementation investment serves as catalytic funding during Teach KC’s early years while supporting the coalition’s long-term vision of adding at least 1,500 educators to the profession over the next decade.

During the initial implementation period, Teach KC will:

• Recruit approximately 750 new teachers into the profession.
• Establish coordinated recruitment, certification, and placement systems across the region.
• Create aligned pathways into teaching through high school, traditional preparation, and earn-and-learn models.
• Build a shared regional data infrastructure that supports accountability, workforce planning, and continuous improvement.
• Strengthen educator retention and advancement through coaching, leadership development, and economic mobility strategies.

The coalition includes a broad network of partners, including the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, Teachers Like Me, The Educator Academy, Teach for America Kansas City, Latinx Education Collaborative, Credit & Homeownership Empowerment Services, Starting Early, the University of Kansas Center for Research on Education Workforce, and the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation.

This investment represents a major step forward for educational excellence in our region. The single largest contributor to a school’s success is the quality of its teachers, but this work is about more than preparing highly skilled educators. We are creating pathways into a profession that offers stability, homeownership opportunities, and long-term wealth-building potential. By strengthening the educator pipeline here in Kansas City, we’re also expanding economic opportunity for more families.

Dr. Cokethea Hill-Woodard
Founder and CEO, BLAQUE Kansas City

Looking ahead

The Foundation views this implementation investment not as the conclusion of the Collective Impact journey, but as the beginning of a longer-term commitment to learning alongside regional partners.

As Teach KC moves into implementation, the Foundation will continue evaluating both implementation outcomes and the broader lessons emerging from the inaugural Collective Impact model. Those insights – including what it takes to build effective coalitions, sustain cross-sector partnerships, and create durable systems change – will inform future funding opportunities.

The first Collective Impact cycle was about more than identifying an implementation investment. It was about strengthening the region’s capacity to solve complex challenges together.

That investment – in relationships, readiness, and regional leadership – will continue creating value long after any single grant concludes.

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