Collaboratory for Community Support-About Us

We all know that if our communities are going to successfully address their social problems, an array of services provided in an integrated manner is required. But more than agency collaboration, a “systems approach” to a problem examines the interaction among the total system of activities: the needs of clients, the work of nonprofit service providers, the requirements of funders, the regulations of government, the roles of board members, and so on. A systems approach asks all of these participants to focus on the ideal design of a comprehensive solution that focuses first and foremost on meeting the goals of the community (not on the needs of separate organizations or the agendas of individuals). The complexity of social problems, the demand for measurable improvements, and the changing roles of nonprofits, government and businesses today require communities to adopt a systems approach to solving problems. The Collaboratory assists communities in developing and implementing a systems approach.

By using the word “system,” we refer to a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent components that form a complex and unified whole. For example, there are natural systems (ecosystems, the nervous system) and human-made systems (transportation systems, mail delivery systems). The Collaboratory’s work focuses on service systems intended to improve community quality of life (such as the homelessness services system or the food assistance system or the teen pregnancy prevention system).

Each of these systems involves clients, many different service providers, various funders, decision makers from boards of trustees and government offices, and others. However, the participants in these systems often don’t see the system at all. They simply focus on their own little piece of the effort and become unconscious participants in an evolution of the system into something none of us ever wanted. It is this lack of attention to whole systems that brought us $2000 hammers in the Defense Department, that has caused distressed families to be interviewed 15 different times by agencies that are supposed to help, and that has led us to spend more on prisons than on educating our children.

Even when we see the undesired results of these system evolutions, our “solutions” are not systemic. For example, we’ve often asked individual agencies to collaborate more, operate joint programs, and co-locate their services. But these collaborations then fail, because separate funding streams cannot be coordinated, or board members don’t understand how to support the collaboration, or clients’ needs are still not met. Until communities begin to recognize all the elements in a system and insist that all of these elements participate in new solutions, we will continue to be disappointed with our efforts to solve problems and improve people’s lives.

We believe that our communities now have enough knowledge and sophistication to become conscious designers of the systems we want, instead of passive recipients of unwanted system results. With the whole community as the focus for system reform, personal desires, organizational agendas, and even sector-wide goals become secondary to meeting the needs of the community.

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With this new mind set, community members will come to own, define, control, and re-design their systems in ways that will solve problems. Our work is intended to help communities analyze and address their needs at a linking point located between individual organizations and complexly integrated social problems.

The Collaboratory for Community Support
7423 Hickory Ridge Drive
Ypsilanti, MI 48197-9487
Phone: 734-623-4952
www.thecollaboratory.us
For more information, email us: jcrubicon@aol.com