Susan McLoughlin, MSN
Executive Director
MCH Coalition of Greater Kansas City
2220 Holmes, Suite 330
Kansas City, MO 64108

Barbara Friedmann
Executive Director
Coalition for Positive Family Relationships
5811 W. 63^rd Street, #308
Overland Park, KS 66202

Susan McLoughlin: Thank you. I remember my first MCH Leadership Conference was back in 1995 when I just had assumed the position at the MCH Coalition for Greater Kansas City, so I was looking for any opportunity to help me learn to do that job better. Making change happen to improve maternal and child health was certainly something I was looking forward to participating in and learning more about. I also remember in a subsequent meeting that many of the agendas and speeches related to partnerships and building partnerships, which told me that the MCH leadership group certainly recognized the importance of that. I also was glad yesterday that Dr. Morris had included the past years’ proceedings and topics in our conference packet. I did notice there was an increasing trend toward discussing building partnerships over the years. Back from 1987 with "Promoting MCH Coalitions," 1988 with "Working Together" forging new partnerships, issues of concern, coordinating with other agencies, etc. Each one of the meetings since that time has really seen an increase in that type of topic. It is really nice that today the group had invited Barbara and me to come to this meeting. I think that we all have tracked maternal and child health activities, and have seen other activities in the community involving many more partnerships today, because that is the trend with limited resources. We try to connect with more organizations that have similar missions or purposed so we can capitalize on each other’s strengths instead of just focusing on our individual ones. Each year we do seem to build on and enhance the ways to collaborate, especially as change occurs all around us, and as we try to make the change happen, as our conference is called. As I sat in the workshops yesterday too, maybe it was just on my mind since we had out title, "Growing the Community Garden," but all the pictures around the hotel are beautiful pictures of gardens, multiple colors in the gardens, landscapes enhanced with bridges and trees and just beautiful things that make the garden much more appealing and inviting. I hope we’ll keep that in mind when we go into our work session, "Collaboration: Growing the Community Garden."

Barbara Friedmann and I thought it might be nice to do something with the theme of this morning’s session, so we got some partners in Kansas City, some second graders to help us with an activity to make some flowers. As we look at these different flowers that were handed out this morning, they are all different, symbolizing the uniqueness of our individual strengths and resources we can bring to collaboration. We are hoping you can contribute in our session this morning, and throughout the morning session we are going to ask that you come up to our garden. Right now, it is pretty bare, but your flowers have numbers on most of them, numbers one to four, and if we invite you to come up to our garden to plant your flower, we’ll see at the end what we have there. Those of you with number one, if you’d like to come up now and put them in there, please do. We know that not everybody will want to come and plant in our garden, same as they may not want to come to your gardens in your community and plant. We kind of look at this as the rotating of crops. You don’t always have the same plants and vegetables in your garden each year, one year it’s riper for tomatoes, and another year, some other kind of flowers.

I think as maternal and child health folks we can all relate to the fact that collaboration is a developmental process. Growing the community garden does not happen overnight. It does not happen all at one time. Like a child, it takes nurturing and patience. Some flowers will need a little care, some flowers will need continual care. Others may need intensive care. Some of the flowers may also not make it. Some of the flowers and plants will become very strong and make it. Some will become stronger and blossom in radiant colors and perhaps fruit and seeds will come from them. Some flowers, though, may wither along the way; perhaps some good fertilizer and nurturing may help them to come back and be renewed. As we go along the way of growing our community and looking at how it is coming along, we may see a need to purposely put in certain flowers, certain colors, traits that we want in our garden that will help to enhance our garden, just like new partners. These may include a variety of flowers or partners we have never thought about before, but once we did, we’re so glad we did include them, because we realize just how much more powerful our community is. Our garden hopefully will become a beautiful bounty our gardeners can be proud of, and our community will become a better place to live.

Barbara and I are so pleased to be able to share with you today our recent activities around new ways of collaboration. Although we both continue to nurture our own individual coalitions on a daily basis through the many ways we’ve discussed at previous meetings and workshops here at this conference, we are now proposing, in addition, a new way of collaboration. And this is coalitions working with our partnering with coalitions. We did prepare a handout that includes everything plus some additional things on the sides. I think you got that when you walked in.

This coalition initiative involves four coalitions in Kansas City including the Maternal and Child Health Coalition and the Coalition for Positive Family Relationships. In addition, the Child Abuse Network, which is part of the Heart of America United Way of Kansas City, which focuses on coordination of the system of preventing child abuse and neglect. Also, the Metropolitan Council on Child Care, a group that is affiliated with the MidAmerica Regional Council in Kansas City, is a member. The MidAmerica Regional Council is helping us to develop a system of faith nurturing, stimulating childhood care, and education. All of these coalitions are multi-disciplinary, and the numbers involve nearly 800 various organizations.

About two years ago Barb and I had participated with about 10 other groups within Kansas City to respond to RFP’s from both Robert Wood Johnson and the Carnegie Foundation related to grants for child health and safety. This was actually how we started to get to know each other and the Metropolitan Council on Child Care and the Child Abuse Network. Although we didn’t receive those grants in Kansas City, it had a wonderful outcome, because some of the funders had really noticed how we collaborated together and the networking that was occurring. One of the biggest private foundations in Kansas City, the Kaufman Foundation had approached the four of us and asked us if we’d be interested in working together to take this to the next step and see if there was a way we could build upon what had started with this work on the RFP’s to another level of collaboration. It turned out that this process of working together resulted in a grant from the Kaufman Foundation, that would assist us in exploring complementary relationships and devising a working model for future coordination and collaboration. That sounded really nice, especially because someone was going to give us resources to do this, give us a facilitator, and time. We said we definitely would like to go along with that.

The Coalition Collaborative Model was developed then to support interdisciplinary ventures at the systems level, no just at the organization level. Partners agreed to pool resources, jointly plan, implement and evaluate new services and procedures, and delegate individual responsibility for the outcomes of their joint ventures. I think we all know the challenges faced in human service agencies today and the new demands on the system call for collaborative strategies at the system level. There are numerous things going on in the environment, which we’ve learned through our workshops and the sessions yesterday such as welfare reform, changes in legislation, a fragmented information system, shifting roles of the non-profit, budget cuts and limited resources. Along with all of this, we are also being asked to provide higher quality programs, even in light of the dwindling resources. Dr. Young also helped us to see yesterday during his spec, "The Power of Shared Responsibility" that the responsibility and health care accountability need to be shared among all agencies and the public. Dr. McDaniel, yesterday afternoon during his talk on understanding and living with organizational uncertainty, noted that opportunities come when you focus on sharing responsibility for creating a new world that extends beyond the boundaries of any narrowly defined organization to the larger professional societal community.

The Coalition Collaborative Model will help tackle the multi-disciplinary problems embedded in our complicated social welfare system. This model is also going to help us network and share information across disciplines. It’s greater than just the disciplines within our one coalition. It’s all the disciplines within our four coalitions. The model is also going to help us prepare to identify and seize future opportunity, which we will see a little bit late. The solution, then, to some of these demands that we have identifies and we all see, is the need to change the demands on our system. First, we must mobilize the members of an established coalition. Second, we must use members’ collective clout to negotiate. Third, we must advocate for programs and policies leading to more comprehensive service delivery and reform. Finally, we must move beyond just the one or two organizations collaborating to connecting the hundreds of organizations involved in our coalition. Most collaborative efforts, again, do just involve the one organization to organization. The coalition collaborative model, however, offers a holistic systems approach that allows these hundreds of organizations and individuals to be engaged in the process, interdependent and connecting all of our groups. The solution also includes working across state lines and county jurisdictions. We are a bi-state area, Kansas and Missouri, covered by all of the coalitions in this collaborative. We are connecting with agencies that we may never have worked with before. Yesterday in some of the work groups, especially the one on the community assessment, we identified organizations and agencies that we may not have thought about, such as the police department and the public housing developments. With our coalition we started a wonderful new partnership with the housing authority. We were trying to meet some of their needs around immunizations, and it’s really been great how it has just blossomed. They have helped us with many of our primary health care initiatives that we were trying to focus on in that community. The Chamber of Commerce is also a group many of us hadn’t thought about, and we realized that that’s a group that we need to connect with more.

The solution also includes beginning to share resources and information in new ways. How did we develop the Coalition Collaborative Model? Some of the things may seem very simple or just a given, but they really can’t be taken for granted. You really need to plan for these things. The most important one is the time commitment. Although we realize we all have too little time, an investment in time up front is really what’s making this model work for us. Another important component is meetings that are facilitated by an outside independent consultant. We used resources from the Kaufman Foundation to help us with this. The meetings must also be participatory, with both staff involved as well as members and board members from each one of the four coalitions involved in the process.

We also all made and effort to increase our understanding of this field, and knowledge resources that each one of our four coalition resources brought to the table. This was a big part of our early planning and preparation and meeting time. Also, it took a lot of time to define our common interests and get to know each other better. We developed a shared vision and common directions for working together. And in crafting our collaborative model, we created guiding principles that will serve as the foundation for how our coalitions will work together. And we explored potential areas of collaboration. Coalitions collaborating with coalitions is fairly unique. We realize it more and more as we talk to groups. Our Midwest collaborative model is allowing us to be poised and be able to proactively respond to opportunities as they arise in the community.

One that we are very proud of is that Kansas City was one of the 40 communities to receive a Healthy Start grant from the Federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau last year. I’m not sure that if we hadn’t been at the time involved with this process that we may not have looked so good to the site visitors for Healthy Start. Site visitors had to see that you truly did have a coalition or collaboration in your community. With the collaboration that was going on here, the Maternal and Child Health Coalition was partnered with the Heart America United Way. The United Way served as a neutral body in Kansas City to be the fiscal agent for the Healthy Start grant and the Maternal and Child Health Coalition was the day-to-day program oversight for the Healthy Start grant. The other nice thing that was going on was the main emphasis of Healthy Start on reducing infant mortality. The collaborative model included care coordination activities and also increased consumer involvement in our planning and in our activities. With the Child Care Council involved, we already had that partnership established and those resources there that were moving us right along, as well as the additional consumers, the Coalition for Positive Family Relationships particularly with the consumers that were involved there.

This flower has number two on it, if anyone would like to come up and plant their flower at this time. Each flower we bring up is a symbol for me of each coalition’s unique skills, resources, and knowledge. This is a focus on mission. While the focus of each one of our coalitions may be unique, they offer an expensive view and touch multiple facets of the human services system that supports children and families. Each brings a specialization in either child health care, child welfare and abuse, or the broader family issues, just like I’m seeing all of these varieties of flowers up front. There is much diversity in the individuals and agencies involved in the four coalitions. Each one also brings connections at the national, state, and local levels that will help with the collaboration for all of our efforts. Hopefully then through this, you can see how we can come up with our shared vision.

The coalition collaborative model is committed to creating a strong, holistic collaborative that strengthens our individual coalitions so that we are poised as a national model for how metropolitan-wide regional coalitions can operate to advance issues related to children and families. Our coalitions have had many different experiences with collaborative approaches over the years. Some have been successful and some not so successful. As a result of our experiences and beliefs, we have developed an underlying philosophy about how we will work together.

A successful collaboration among our coalitions will support the following guiding principles and beliefs. These beliefs will serve and are serving as the foundations for our collaboration. We believe that a shared vision will guide and direct our work together. This shared vision is developed with all key stakeholders and is built on a willingness and passion to work together. We believe in open communication and shared information. Sharing of information that is important to making relationships work, including information on objectives, goals, and technical information. Putting aside turf issues. Openly sharing agendas, ideas, hopes, desires, personal and organizational strategies. Consistently revisiting our expectations throughout the process. Practicing fair and honest communication. We also believe in each other. We recognize the value and strength of each collaborating partner, and that each has something to contribute: skills, expertise, knowledge, and resources. We value each collaborating partner’s individual contribution that helps advance the shared vision of the group. We believe in an inclusive, well-designed process that leads to quality outcomes. This process creates a wholesome atmosphere that is built on respect and trust, and openness. The process includes those who have a stake in the issue at the table and equal partners. We all are equal in this activity. We promote honest, open sharing of information, expectations, and strategies. We believe in conducting outcome-based meetings that are pre-planned, thoughtfully organized to enhance and assure the most efficient use of the member’s time and resources. I’m not so sure from Dr. McDaniel’s talk yesterday whether he would agree with this or not, but I think as he sees our process and our other guiding principles, he may see that we do have flexibility built in.

Meetings are really important, and the key criteria to having a good meeting, although it seems like, again, it’s a simple thing that we all know, we’ve all been to meetings that actually stifle the collaborative process. In developing the collaborative model, we really took seriously key criteria in developing of holding a good meeting. These would include: clearly articulating the purpose and expected outcomes of the meeting prior to coming together; top quality facilitation when needed; periodically revise the purpose and reconfirm the expectations of those participating; preparing materials and doing the necessary preparation work prior to convening the meeting to ensure meetings are productive; creating and implementing a well-designed system to remind members of time, location, and purpose of the meeting to ensure attendance of those who need to be present. Again, they seem simple, but they are very important. Additional goals for conducting a successful meeting include: focusing energy and dialogue during the meeting of outcomes and overcoming obstacles to move the plan forward; avoiding prolonged discussion of politics or gossiping without the right stakeholders at the table who can contribute their perspective; self-managing the discussion at the meeting by sharing the responsibility of facilitating, recording information, and keeping time; using intentional thoughtful consensus when making decisions.

Also in our guiding principles, we believe in the dynamics of change. We are open to changing within our coalitions, and we are open to changing how we work together and do things among coalitions. Patience and trust are very important in the process. My boss used to say to me when I would get nervous about whether things were going to work out was, "Trust the process, it does work." And she’s right. We also believe in cultivating and nurturing community leadership in each of the collaborating organizations. This is key to the success as leadership changes. We’re committed to nurturing these personal relationships, to bringing in the new stakeholders, to introduce them to the process, and to other people that are involved. We also believe in putting in the necessary time, energy, and resources required to sustain a successful collaboration. Again, we recognize that collaborative strategies require more time and energy to nurture and sustain. We’re committed to investing that time necessary, going above and beyond what is normally required for traditional approaches to work. We believe in clearly articulating expectations and revisiting them throughout the collaborative process. Each collaborating partner can clearly articulate what is in it for them to be in this partnership, to be involved in this process. We believe in focusing on the positive energy within a group, to maintain the momentum and build a synergy of those willing to move an initiative forward. For example, the Healthy Start grant.

We also believe in public recognition and visibility of contributing members of the coalition. We believe in recognizing and celebrating and building on successes. This gives us a sense of accomplishment and maintains our momentum, as simple as doing a press conference related to Healthy Start. Every year I recognize more and more just how important celebrating our successes is, and recognizing the people who contribute. We believe in being driven by mission purpose, and the needs of our community, not by external factors such as funding or peripheral stakeholders. We believe in building and nurturing customer relationships through respect. We show one another through the honesty that we portray in our communication with each other, a trusting relationship is built between the individuals that represent the organizations involved. Personal relationships are very important in this process. We believe in sharing resources, which means devoting financial and other resources to the relationship, and not competing for funding with other members of the collaborative initiative. Now that I’ve laid out our shared vision and guiding principles, I believe Barb will talk about the collaborative approaches and structures.

Barb Friedmann: As I begin, let the number three flowers come up to plant in our garden. What Susan has shared with us so far this morning has a great deal to do with process. And it has a great deal to do with the philosophy of that process. We are going to get down to some nitty gritty things, and as Susan said, some of this sounds pretty easy, but there is nothing like sitting down and talking about it at the same table with every one as to the process and how the process is going to be handled.

In order for a collaboration to work, these coalitions agree that the members of the community and organizational leaders, as well as funders need to better understand the dynamics of power and politics within the community. I don’t think that can be understated. Better understand how power and politics function at the community level. Better understand how power can be practiced in ways of being organizationally effective, being healing as well as fulfilling. Better understand how decisions are made at the community level. And, quire candidly, this is something that none of us ever talked about outside of our own organizations before. Kansas City is not unique, we know that. But there are usually a handful of people that make decisions in communities about how money are going to be spent, what the hot issue is this year and that year. This is not something we talked about very openly, and we also put names to those faces as well. That’s where sharing is so important. Better understand the intended and unintended consequences of decision-making. This has to do with funders and community leaders and working together with them. And to personally understand the impact that each of these coalitions may have on influencing or making decisions that affect the lives of children and families as well as the whole community. When you think about it, Susan mentioned, we have over 800 organizations that are now together philosophically and in a working relationship. If we share with one another different points of view, different areas of public policy and decision-making, issues that may affect the legislature, and again we are on both sides of the state lines in Kansas in Missouri, all of a sudden our ally base grows and grows and grows. The coalition shared a common belief that empowerment itself comes from widening our understanding and the kinds of power that are going on all around you, uncovering a wider spectrum of possibilities for embracing power. Power is not a terrible thing, if not misused.

As we explored the process of community change, we concluded that community-based boards of directors yield a great deal of power in a variety of ways, as do community volunteers. Board members and board membership in a community organization and in all of human services is a community trust. In greater Kansas City there are a number of community leasers, and again, I don’t think we’re unique in this, a great number of community leaders who sit on multiple boards. These leaders can affect a community opinion, they can affect a community-wide change, they can be a facilitator to that change, or they can be a barrier to that change. They can literally set an agenda and move from board meeting to board meeting. We’ve got a number of folks who sit on anywhere from a half a dozen to a dozen different boards. The langeuage they hear in one board meeting they take to another board meeting. The opinion at one board meeting they can take to another board meeting. So, boards themselves, and community volunteers and those we worked with are very important to this partnership we’ve developed.

These coalitions, therefore, agree to educate and train our board members on the importance of their roles as board members and their responsibilities as board members to serve on various community boards. This would include strategic planning efforts that we would work on together, as wee as board training initiatives, opportunities for working across organizations so the board members can see the many connections across the community, rather than the barriers. More seriously looking at the roles that each coalition’s board’s nominating committee was paramount to us. It was the feeling of a number of folks in our group as we met and put this process together that the most important position on the board is the chairperson of the nominating committee. Quite candidly, I had not thought about that before. But, it’s from that committee that the power and continuation of the vision is going to be charted down the road.

We agreed to focus on developing and untapping new leadership. Again, I don’t think that can be understated. We need new and growing leadership that is able and willing to embrace change within a community. We also agree to work on developing a partnership between boards and staff. We can’t leave staff out of this. In the Coalition for Positive Family Relationships our place within this collaborative of coalitions is really to work with personnel of our member organizations. In fact, the staff of our member organizations are our customers.

The coalitions agreed also to further explore ethical standards, and I don’t mean to throw a wrench into something today. Sometimes ethics and morality and the term standards seem to raise red flags with some folks. They didn’t with us. There needs to be ethical standards, just as in the professions you all represent here. We believe that those ethical standards need to start with organizational leadership modeling that ethical behavior. If the leadership doesn’t model it, staff isn’t going to model it, the board isn’t going to model it, and you’re not going to be meeting the needs of your customer base. Values, ethics, and moral responsibility were and are key issues for both the staff and the members of our various coalitions. We devised a procedure as well in making decisions. An again, you have this delineated in you sheets. I would caution every one again, you might think you may be doing some of these things and that it would be really easy just to run over it, but don’t. It’s so important that you discuss these things with others you bring in to work with you as you develop your collaborations with one another. As a starting point, the coalitions agreed that each coalition should understand the governance on decision-making process of the other coalitions. Quite candidly, I’ve known Susan for a long time. I’ve known the other two folks we work with in the other coalitions for a long time, too. I thought I knew everything I needed to know about the Maternal and Child Health Care Coalition and the others. I found out I didn’t know anything. Governance and politics, and process, and procedures that each organization goes through we have to find a common ground. If we don’t know all of those things right off the top and aren’t willing to share those things with one another, it’s impossible to find common ground.

The next one may be the simplest of all. The coalition agreed to set up and adopt three little rules, which our Coalition for Positive Family Relationships adopted in the very beginning six years ago when it came into existence. Sounds easy, but number one is to leave all the turf issues at the door. And I will say to you as I say at all our meetings in Kansas City, it’s not at this door, it’s not at the door immediately outside of here, it’s the outside door of this Holiday Inn building. That’s where the turf issues have to be left. Way outside. Number two: no hidden agendas. In fairness, if I don’t know everything that’s on the table, I may just make my decision from what I see. If you’re hiding 20% or somebody is hiding 20% underneath the table, and nine times out of ten it’s the most important 20%, how good is my decision going to be? So, no hidden agendas. Keep 100% on top to the table. And, number three: if you come to the table of collaboration, it means you’re willing to share. Sharing is something, we all know, we learn to do by the age of four, and then by the age of five we determine this isn’t working very well. So, we practice during the next thirty or forty years in not sharing. And we become very happy with that. Sharing is not always easy. What we mean by sharing is the sharing of ideas. When we come together as coalitions and as organizations in discussion and a learning opportunity, ideas emerge, unless you’re absolutely exhausted and your brain is totally asleep, just by interacting with other people ideas emerge around the table. What we like to say is that we obligate each other to share those ideas at the community table so that we can all try to build on those ideas together. The use of basing our decision-making process on authentic dialogue, developing an inter-agency coalition agreement around projects we take on together. The Healthy Start project is paramount to that, and it’s been a marvelous practice for us. The rotation of leadership responsibilities, as Susan mentioned, is also very important. Nobody should be seen as the owner of the coalition or collaboration, or as the leader of it. That’s something that has to be shared. It’s also, again, very important when you have the opportunity to share, it teaches people in shared leadership.

Using consensus decision-making. Consensus is just finding a way so agree with one another, and being able to then move forward. It is a win-win proposition when it is built into the fundamental framework. But, quite, candidly, if you don’t have that attitude coming into it, that his is going to be a win for you and for everybody else, and ultimately, a win for the children and families within our community, you’re wasting your time. Also important is ensuring the decision-making processes are built on integrity and are respectful of others’ internal processes. This gets back again to why it’s so terribly important to have a good understanding of how other people run their own shops. We also need to plan with others, not for others. I don’t know how many times I hear that, and I’m sure you all hear it all the time as well. Those days of top-down decisions, telling people what’s good for them are about over. We need to ask, and we need to get to know one another, and then try to meet those needs of one another. The community is the key player in this collaboration. Also, we need to explore and understand each other’s core competencies, as Susan mentioned. Each of us brings so much expertise to the table, and I don’t mean Susan and myself. I’m talking about our member organizations. The expertise is immeasurable. But, we have to know, because that is the richness of the group we have to offer one another.

Meetings have to be well-planned. The agendas have to be clear. The use of an outside facilitator, keeping it on a neutral ground, is very important, especially as you all are first coming together with other organizations. A neutral organization that has an understanding or will learn about each one of the organizations is a great way of beginning that. Encourage participation and input from members, instead of just having people come and sit and soak it all up. That doesn’t meet the criteria. We need their expertise. We need their opinion. For many reasons, quite candidly, and selfishly, we need their opinion because we’re going to go out with something, a new program or idea. If you’ve got everybody’s opinion, you’ve got a better chance of going out with something that’s going to be successful. So, the least of it is you know you wouldn’t have insulted somebody or left somebody out. And again, meeting when you have a purpose to meet is very important.

There also needs to be an increased understanding within the community by organizational leaders and funders that what we’re talking about takes time. We were in a unique situation, as was mentioned, when the Kaufman Foundation, which is the largest foundation in Kansas City, came to our four organizations and said, "We really like the way you were working together. You didn’t get the grant, but we’d like to give you some money." We all practically fainted. "We’d like to give you some money for you all to do a project with one another." And, in essence, that’s how it started. They didn’t say how much, they didn’t say what kind of project, they just said, "What do you want to do?" And we all came up with an idea that was kind of way out there. We were going to create a house in the middle of the neighborhood that had total services, that any family could come there. These kinds of things are happening in Kansas City, anyway, but then you start to think, "who knows somebody who can get a house, and what about making sure it can handle disabilities, and safety factors, and who’s going to pay for the parenting corner?" Well, soon that’s how we realized we didn’t know as much about one another as we needed to know. We were a long way from building a house in inner city Kansas City, Missouri. That’s where this idea came from. We then went back to the funder and said, "We need to get to know one another a little better. Would you be willing to help us with that?" We were fortunate that they said "yes." But, again, they knew too, that if they said "yes" that there was going to be a lot of time invested.

The key element, above and beyond everything, is communication. Collaboration does not work if there is no communication. We developed a communication strategy that is both internal and external. Internal communication strategies target staff, board members, and member organizations where the external communications target the community-at-large, including the human service agencies, clients, civic leaders, vendors, medial, elected officials, policy makers, etc. I can't say enough about how important it is that community leaders and other leaders in the community have a sense of what's happening in the non-profit community and in human services. We've been too insular for too many years. We need their support in order to do our programs and to move our services to the neighborhood level. We need them to help us in outreach, and they can do that.

There were several internal communication strategies we agreed to. First, we agreed to encourage the use of online media. We have in Kansas City a network called the Community Resource network, which is linking up non-profit organizations within the metropolitan area. We also agreed there was a need to improve the distribution of important material to membership to ensure they will become engaged in the collaborative process. It was also important to improve the timeliness of communication. If we want to talk about public policy or decision-making at a legislative level, communication better be timely or we miss the window of opportunity. We agreed we needed to create opportunities for our members to come together face-to-face and network. You just can't beat it. When you meet somebody, and know their name, and they can tell you what they do in their organization, and what services they have available, all the sudden you're out in the field and working with a family, you can say, "John said that he could do this, so maybe I'll give him a call." And, you're going to give him a call at his organization because he made an impression on you. That's very important. We also distribute the newsletter for the Coalition for Positive Family Relationships to all the member organizations of this collaborative coalition group. We also believe in creating a directory; currently we have a directory from each of the coalitions that are involved, but we're looking at putting together a directory of all 800 member organizations. This would be a resource that could be shared with members as well as citizenry within the community. We had a lot of support from printshops as well as the media in distributing these directories. It would be important to assign a board member, and again it becomes a responsibility, or a community volunteer to review the newsletters of member organizations and glean from them whatever information that would be necessary so that they can go back to their board or staff and share that information. And then, actively engage our boards of directors in cosponsoring and joint planning our training sessions. There is no reason we can't do that. The whole idea is being able to work with and learn from one another.

The external communication strategy would include the improving of communication efforts with funders and other leaders. Again, it's very important that the funders have an idea of

what it is you're doing and why it's important. Also, concentrating efforts on educating policy makers about the work of the coalition is important. Sharing success stories as well as using the media outlet helps us to do that. The important part about staying connected is that it's important for Susan and myself and the others that are in leadership from these groups to at least touch base with one another occasionally. We're trying to do it on a regular basis. Our Coalition for Positive Family Relationships has a monthly executive director lunch we hold for executive directors, supported by the Kaufman Foundation. The other facet of this is that if you don't touch base regularly you're not going to develop the demonstration project we have promised ourselves to do. This type of project really provides a sense of purpose and shared direction for all members within the collaborative coalition group.

The criterion for identifying potential areas for collaboration gets back to trying to get to know one another. First, is there an issue we can all get behind? What we found is that all of these coalitions share family issues. Is there something in it for all four coalitions? I'm not talking about our offices. I'm talking about for all of our 800 member organizations. Is there something in it for them? Is it going to be worth the time, energy, and resources it's going to require in order to do it? Does the issue we come up with advance the mission and build upon the vision and the goals of this collaborative group? Have we clearly defined what each coalition is going to be able to contribute in a way that interests not only them, but builds upon the skills that bring others to the table? Have we fully defined the problem we're addressing, and has it been fully defined in the language of the various coalitions? Keep in minds that all of these coalitions and all of their members speak different professional languages. We've got social workers, mental health, law enforcement, educators, as well as the spiritual community that is part and parcel to all of this. So, you've got all of these professional folks out there. Do we even know what the solution is going into it? Have we fully defined who else is needed to be involved in order to make this thing happen? Does it tap existing resources? If not, are there or do we among us have the significant resources that we can tap? That again states how important it is to get to know one another better, so we know what resources each can bring to the table. Have we fully accessed the staff resources necessary? And more importantly, what's the impact of all this going to be? Can the impact be measured? We're really big in Kansas City on outcomes. The United Way has been working on outcome evaluations. Outcomes will become very important. Is it sustainable once we get a project moving and going is the first question that funders ask. And, what are the geographic boundaries? Again, we have a challenge in Kansas City, being on a state line, which has an invisible wall down the middle of a little street called State line. We found we could overcome the wall and work on a federal grant with people across the state line to better serve families. All of the services and programs that any child or family need are available in the metropolitan Kansas City area if you're willing to cross the state line.

Does this collaboration we are about to embrace build on the personal relationships that can oftentimes come and go? People leave positions in administration. Or, does it build on the relationships with the institutions? It has to do both. We can't ever tear ourselves away from relationships we start with people. If we trust the people, we start to trust what those people represent and what those people do. And also, does it align with other community needs? The Focus Kansas City Project, our community throughout the entire metropolitan area really has been working on strategic planning in the next millenium. Does the project we're working on complement what thousands of people throughout our community have come together and seen as the strategic goals of our community? It has to fit in. You're not going to be able to get the business people and the civic folks to go along with what you're doing if it doesn't fit in.

The solution we came upon was called a data warehouse. It is a way of utilizing data and implementing information and sharing that information. But, briefly, before discussing data warehousing, all of those having a number four flower or those without a number four on it, if you're so inclined, would you come up and plant your flower in the garden. Through data warehousing and developing a warehousing system, human service professionals are able to access information from literally hundreds of organizations that children and families throughout our region. You're also able to tap information about services that connect families with a wide array of programs. Again, we're looking at a holistic approach to meeting the needs of families, so it's very important to address the whole family's needs. Through data warehousing you're also able to track the services being offered and the services being used the most. Again, trying to be as accountable as possible, are the services successful? You're also able to identify gaps in services and target services in areas that seem to have a higher need than other areas. And, finally, you're able to make outcome-based decisions more effectively, which again helps you to leverage funding. It is a kind of a framework that has been used in industry for about the past five years, but it is fairly new in human services. It would be a repository for information designed from the ground up to meet the needs for information-sharing within the community. It is a resource that automatically organizes and collects information for professionals and houses it in an accessible way. Here is the best part: you put information in there once, and that information can be drawn from the warehouse. You can ask it a thousand different questions, and the information can come back to you in a thousand different ways just by having the information there once. Confidentiality is kept sacred, there are several fire walls set up so only those who are approved to get certain information can get it.

It's our hope that our collaborative coalition will grow as vibrant as this flower garden,

supporting the widest array of fragrances and varieties, while sharing the things they have in common. Having things in common is important. For example, these flowers need fresh air, they need sun, they need to be nourished, and they need to be weeded. And that shared need is common with the rest of nature. They need nature to work with them, as Rita mentioned in the beginning. You need the worms and the birds and the bees, and you need the wind and rain. But, you need to recognize, too, that their very survival depends greatly on all they hold unique and to themselves. Each of these organizations, just like the flowers, is unique. Those, in fact, are the things they will be able to bring together and teach one another. The things that will truly help them to grow. And, so it is with you, at each of your organizations you represent, they are the integral part, the unique flower of the garden. To derive the greatest beauty from the garden, the most vibrant colors, the sweetest fragrances, the richness of the season, all willing flowers must be able to find a place in the garden. It can't be an exclusive place. The garden of collaboration is not easy to build or keep, but its value to your community, partners, the children and families you serve is immeasurable. Just as you contributed a flower to the garden here today, may you return home from this conference ready to break the soil for your own garden of collaboration. Good luck, good growing, and thank you.