Sample Scenario:
Let’s look at an example of cross sector work:
The multitude of reforms needed in health care affect all of us. Government and private payers cannot handle the escalating costs. Huge numbers of patients lack access to care because they are not covered by insurance. The level of community health status here is beneath levels in much of the world. In spite of the great medical education, technologies, and pharmaceuticals, Americans are not very healthy. One of the major causes of this predicament is our life style. Wellness and illness prevention are key to the turnaround.
So in a cross sector scenario, the state health department collects, reads, and blows the whistle on the data. It invites community leaders and organizers to start conversations about the community health status data. A leading foundation spots the opportunity to make progress on this challenge, and it speaks with community businesses and generous individuals about funding a series of design labs led by the Public Strategies Group to carry out ideation and design activity…across sectors…involving the health department, many non-profit health care providers, the Chambers of Commerce, the Citizens’ League, a few large corporations who want to stimulate change by helping fund the creative design opportunities and the spreading of community conversations about the opportunities to incentivize citizens to pursue wellness practices. Seed money grants are given to some communities to promote community-wide wellness programs. Employers encourage employees, covering the costs of health club memberships and yoga programs. Minnesota Community Measurement establishes a measurement system to track the implementation and the outcomes of the wellness programs. Insurances and plans provide coverage for the costs of physical development trainers and nutrition teachers. The Public Strategies Group provides ongoing organizing of the collaborative activities that were spawned by the initial design labs…across sectors.
As the song goes…”there is a time for…” Cross Sector Consulting. And this is the time. PSG realizes it, and many others do. At this year’s Engaged Philanthropy Conference and in most of the work of Social Venture Partners, the search is for solutions that cut across the boundaries of the public sector, the private sector, the social sector, and the philanthropic sector to address mighty challenging public purpose problems. During 2009 PSG was invited by private foundations to join in with them, with private industry contributors, and with government committees and staff to creatively address the huge budget challenges for the state of Minnesota. The outcomes were helpful, and the experience was so productive and meaningful for the participants that there were immediate plans made to do more of it in the future.
So, PSG has decided to position itself to address public purpose problems from the perspective of going across sectors, not confining itself to working in just one sector. It has initiated a Division of Non-Profit and Cross Sector Consulting Services to complement and integrate with its Government Services Division, which has been in existence and functioning locally, nationally, and globally since 1991.
Functioning across sectors goes like this:
1. We receive a request for help from one or more sectors, the public, private, social, or philanthropic sectors.
2. We decide that the request represents a challenge well worth addressing and one that has at least a possibility of being productively addressed.
3. We find sources of interest and contribution in at least one other sector, perhaps in all other sectors, and recruit them to join in the effort to solve the problem.
4. We plan and execute the campaign:
4.1. Work across boundaries with the new coalition or partnership of sectors to mount a campaign to diagnose and research the shared public purpose need,
4.2. Design a useful direction, an alignment on what success will look like, and a set of strategies and activities to address the problem, including establishing the partnerships and collaborations needed to execute the strategies and to wrestle effectively with such a problem.
4.3. Develop the necessary funding to accomplish the plans over time.
4.4. And patiently implement the coordinated actions to solve the problem.
There is also a more subtle, less global version of approaching solutions in a cross sector fashion. PSG is asked to help a client system with a challenge that cuts across more than one division or more than one strategic group across the system. PSG works with the client organization to build collaboration and shared perspectives across the divisions or sectors, using its experience in drawing from diverse interests and cultures to create an overall solution.
PSG believes that major public purpose challenges can best be addressed and solved from the cross sector perspective and platform. Maybe it is the only way that they can be addressed and solved.
For more information contact the Public Strategies Group Division of Non-Profit and Cross Sector Consulting Services at 651-227-9774 or explore the web site at www.psg.us. |
