Following on the heels of two successfulreports Making Collective Impact Work and Collective Impact, FSG has written a series of four blog posts for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, about understanding the value of backbone organizations.

The first blog post describes the Greater Cincinnati Foundation’s motivations for funding backbone organizations, and for sharing evaluation work and data with FSG in order to advance the thinking around collective impact.

The second blog post describes key backbone activities and expected outcomes. It also looks at value-added activities that backbone organizations share in common across sectors.

The third blog post shares highlights from evaluation findings.

The fourth blog post shares the next steps and expands on lessons learned.

These posts were written by Shiloh Turner, Vice President for Community Investment at The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Kathy Merchant, CEO of The Greater Cincinnati Foundation; John Kania, Managing Director at FSG; and Ellen Martin, Senior Consultant at FSG.