So what is it that MDHA does? It is a backbone organization that leads the development of an effective homeless rehousing system. In partnership with 80+ public, private, and nonprofit institutions, we make the experience of homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties rare, brief, and non-recurring.
One of five conditions an effort must meet to be a genuine collective impact effort is that it have a strong backbone organization. In explaining this concept, we have found the sport of crew to supply us with a very helpful metaphor.
You see eight muscular athletes, who if viewed from sufficient altitude, might seem (along with their boat) like one harmonious organ system. They row together, in perfect synchronicity, each doing their part, to advance the one vessel, as it swiftly cuts through the water. This is the essence of collective impact.
Radcliffe Heavyweight Women’s Crew Team (Courtesy of the Harvard Gazette)
Upon closer look, you see one more figure (hint: pink hat), the Coxswain (pronounced cox-en). According to Business Insider, the coxswain makes all the difference in crew.
“Among the tall, chiseled men and women powering the boat sits a small, seemingly motionless member in the back of the boat. This is a coxswain, and though their job may look meaningless, they actually serve an important purpose… steering, executing race strategy, keeping a crew synchronized and motivating rowers to pull harder on their oars…
If it seems like an easy task, it’s not that simple. As Katelin Snyder, the coxswain of the US women’s eight rowing team told The Hamilton Spectator from (the) Rio (Olympics), she’s not just telling the rowers to go faster.
Jennie Kunes, Harvard Men’s Heavyweight Crew Coxswain (Courtesy of the Harvard Gazette)
“‘Go faster could mean pull harder with my arms or it could mean swing more with my body or step quicker with my legs. So when I want them to go faster I have to specify where and how we’re going to do that together.'”
That’s it. That is what we do. In the world of social change, the backbone organization is the coxswain of the collective impact effort. And in Dallas and Collin Counties, MDHA is the coxswain of the homeless rehousing system.
