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Making Multi-Sectoral Teams Work:

Policies, Procedures, and Tools for Success

Communities Joined in Action Conference

February 15, 2018

Good afternoon, I’m Gini Knight and... Megan Bolejack….

We are both team members of same initiative, Community Food Strategies, but we work at different organizations. AND even though we only see each other in occasional strategy meetings, trainings, or presentations like this, it’s totally working.

Our team consists of eight team members from six separate ‘home organizations’, we don’t work in the same office, and only see each other a few times a month, we are enjoying a rewarding and fun team culture and having positive impact in the communities we work with and in our home organization’s missions.

In the next hour, we’ll tell you about our work, some of our successes, and most importantly some of the tools and practices we use and are learning to create an effective multi-sectoral team that is showing success in it’s work.

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Characteristics

Unclear problem definition, not finite

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Characteristics

Unclear problem definition, not finite

Requires innovative learning that includes multiple agencies

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Characteristics

Unclear problem definition, not finite

Requires innovation and learning that includes multiple agencies

Adaptive leadership and willingness to experiment

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Food councils are cross-sector coalitions that provide perspective on the whole community food system.

Food councils convene these many sectors, perform research, educate, and recommend policies to improve their food system.

Food policy councils are coalitions involving multiple agencies and sectors that use their many perspectives to take a comprehensive view of the whole community food system.

Not just healthy food access and nutrition education to children and seniors, but this whole food system approach looks at food distribution, marketing & economic opportunities or challenges, food and farm worker safety, and the environment impact of food production, processing, distribution, and waste.

Food councils see or observe each of these trees and the whole forest, or each piece of a pie. They see the whole and how they are connected and rely on one another.

And thus, when one societal problem is impacted by each of these pieces, you get the tangled web of a wicked problem, and therefore you need all of those pieces to be a part of the solution.

Food councils convene these different sectors around a common goal. They perform research, educate, and recommend policies to improve their food system.

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Who’s involved in a food council?

Production > Processing > Distribution > Consumption > Waste

Local government officials
Planning departments
Food pantry staff
Soil and Water District staff
Teachers
Faith leaders
University staff and researchers

Cooperative Extension
Restaurant owners
Farmers
Public health professionals
Economic developers
Non-profit organizations

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Charlotte Mecklenburg Food Policy Council

Formed in 2010

to create a more equitable, sustainable, healthy food system

Now I want to share a story that highlights how a food policy council uses this concept of a wicked problem to help their approach to addressing it.

This will give you some context or background about how our multi-organizational project team got started. Then, we’ll share more about our project structure and tools we use to engage many sectors and organizations in community based policy work related to healthy food and thriving farms.

This story is about the Charlotte Mecklenberg Food Policy Council, a group of dedicated, cross sector local food advocates came together in 2010 to tackle the very complex issue of creating a sustainable, equitable, and healthy food system.

They spent several years of having conversations, developing relationships, and doing research to work towards this vision. In their assessment of their community’s food system, they gravitated toward one of many issues they saw - school food.

It connected many sectors - school system, public health, local gov’t, parents, food production & distribution, etc…

AND this focus area could have significant impact.

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Reality - Families have to choose:

35% of Mecklenberg County families with kids face food insecurity

OR

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One of several solutions = improve school food

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Fresh Look at School Food event

County Health Department
School cafeteria staff
Students
Chefs
Cooperative Extension
Non-profits, like MomsRising
University

In 2015, CMFPC worked with the Mecklenburg County Health Department and other partners to organize an event called, A Fresh Look at School Food – which was held at a local University.

They used the networks and resources of those partners to reach a broad audience, to learn about the barriers to healthy food and wishes of the staff and students, and began to find solutions.

This event attracted more than 100 people

Movie viewing, Cafeteria Man;

Staff members had a cooking competition

Panel discussion with students

Health Dept,
Cafeteria staff
Cooperative Extension,
Non-profits, like MomsRising, a group working to support women, mothers and families,
University

Developing a deeper understanding of the issue to create innovative solutions and building relationships across sectors was the start of many accomplishments.

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Start with low-hanging fruit

Started cooking classes in schools with gardens

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Accomplishments since 2010	Key Partners
Mobile farmers market legislation passed	Local gov’t
Food pantries opened on college campuses	Colleges, food pantries
3+ yrs of FoodCorps members serving in high-poverty schools	Public schools, Cooperative Extension
Formation of Fresh Look at School Food coalition	Health dept, kitchen staff, nutritionists, nonprofits
GAP certified greens at Garbinger High School	NC Dept. of Ag, CFSA, Cooperative Extension
Candidate Forums, education, and relationships with state and federal representatives	Congresswoman Adams, Senator Jackson

Since 2010, Charlotte and Mecklenburg County has seen

mobile farmers market legislation passed (local govt),
food pantries on college campuses opened (univ & food security org),
3+ years of hosting FoodCorps service members serving in high-poverty Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (schools, Coop Ext),
the formation of the Fresh Look at School Food coalition to improve access to healthy food at school (Health Dept),
They got the greens from Garbinger High School garden GAP certified, so they can be served in the cafeteria (Coop Ext, NCDA, school kitchen staff), and
They have hosted three Candidate Forums for community member and elected officials or those running for office to talk about food and farming issues. They provided fact sheets to these officials and now have ongoing relationships with several of their elected officials.
an overall increased awareness of the issues surrounding equitable food access.

This group brought together all of these stakeholders to make that happen.

They built a collaborative network to begin to address a wicked problem, and work to develop new innovative solutions.

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Connecting w/policy makers

Above: Congresswoman Alma Adams

at 2016 Candidate Forum

Left: Mayor elect Vi Lyles &

Councilwoman LaWana Mayfield

For the past three years, they’ve hosted Candidate Forums, free public forums to create avenues for community members to talk with decision makers. At these forums, they

Shared information and fact sheets with the elected officials and those running for office.
Listened to decision makers priorities and proposals

They brought in more than 100 community members at each forum, facilitating engaging dialogue. They’ve built relationships with their policy makers. Now they are seen as the food system experts in the county, and as having connection with a large grassroots network.

As a result of these Forums, the Char Meck FPC is leading focus groups around food access for their U.S. Congresswoman Alma Adams. Their state representative has joined the Senate Ag Committee and is interested in working towards more state funding for school lunch/school food. And they are working with 3 other food councils in NC to offer recommendations to the SNAP benefits program of the Farm Bill.

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Health care and food systems are examples of a:

https://www.slideshare.net/sameervasta/wicked-problems-and-open-innovation

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We work to empower local food councils and networks

to create community-led collaboration and

equitable policy change at the local, state, and national level.

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Vision

We envision an equitable food system

that is community driven and

improves the quality of life for all.

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What we do:

Build alliances
Provide tools and trainings
Offer statewide structure to the network

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Multi-organizational initiative

Like I mentioned earlier, our initiative is made up of eight team members within six organizations or entities

Appalachian Sustainable Ag Project works in Western NC to support their local farms with market opportunities, to increase consumer education about local food with farm tours, farm to school programs, and a local food guide, and this year is hosting a big conference for health care practitioners focused on healthy eating as a form of preventative medicine.

Care Share Health Alliance helps communities improve access to health care and coordinate other resources for underserved people through collaborative networks.

Carolina Farm Stewardship Association works across NC and SC to bring more local and organic food to consumers. They have extensive farm trainings and resources and have a very engaged policy and advocacy team for sustainable and organic agriculture.

Center for Environmental Farming Systems is a partnership of the two land grant universities and the NC Dept of Ag. They have a 2000 acre sustainable ag research farm, thus are very engaged in field production research, academic programs, extension and outreach. They host trainings and provide resources on production, supply chain, and local food economies. They also host many initiatives on youth engagement, niche meat markets, and racial equity in the food system, etc.

Committee on Racial Equity is an entity that is housed at CEFS that focuses on delivering trainings, coaching, awareness and resources around racial equity issues.

NC Rural Center works to improve the quality of life for rural people and places through economic strategies. They have community engagement, advocacy, leadership, business development and lending or loan programs.

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Guiding Principles or Frameworks

Whole Measures of a Community-based Food System
Circle Forward
Collective Impact
Network Weaving
Racial Equity

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Whole Measures

Whole Measures of a Community-based Food System

Vibrant Farms & Gardens

Equity

Healthy People

Strong Communities

Thriving Economies

Sustainable Ecosystems

http://alivebynature.com/pub/WholeMeasuresCFS-web.pdf

We’ll start with Whole Measures of a Community-based food system.

Raise your hand if you use this framework in your work? Raise your hand if you have heard of Whole Measures?

This framework is a little more encompassing that the Five Main Components of a Food Systems - getting food from the farm to the plate and back into the waste stream or soil. Production > Processing > Distribution/Retail > Consumption > Waste.

Whole Measures are believed values of community-based food system. They were established by national entity, Community Food Security Coalition. This first tool, sort defines our scope of which sectors and entities, should be involved. It defines the system or the context in which we are working in. If your work falls under one of these values and you have a common thread of healthy food, then your entity would have valuable perspective to bring to the table.

We encourage food councils and our project to consider and invite participation of several stakeholders within each of these 6 Whole Measures.

Thriving economies, Healthy people, Vibrant farms and gardens, Resilient ecosystems, Equity, Strong communities and supportive policy

We want to make sure our project partners represent and provide expertise in each of these measures, and we encourage FCs to seek stakeholders or members from each whole measure. This is a framework to consider when thinking about who should be at the table.

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Blind men �and �the elephant

By John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887)

When you bring multiple sectors together, you get diverse perspectives and expertise, and often not a shared understanding of the goal and often the use of different vocabulary. multiple cross-sector agencies with diverse skills, experiences and perspectives.

Your first meetings can often be like this cartoon here, “Blind Men and the Elephant”, trying to work on a common goal but not fully understanding the many parts or components of the problem or strategies to accomplish the goal.

For example, if you’re a horticulture agent with Cooperative Extension working with large scale farmers, you may not be aware of the realities food deserts or food swamps.

These stakeholders had to learn each other’s language, be willing to experiment, and find or be open to new solutions to begin to unravel this wicked problem.

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Multi-organizational

Equity

Healthy People

Resilient Ecosystems

Thriving Economies

Strong Community & Supportive Policy

Vibrant Farms & Gardens

X X X

X

X X

X X X

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#collaborativegovernance

www.circleforward.us

The next framework we use is Circle Forward: Tool #2:

It’s a shared leadership and dynamic governance model to make sure all voices are heard and contributing.

This tool gives us guidance on how we work together as a team.

Raise your hand if you use this framework in your work? Raise your hand if you have heard of Circle Forward or dynamic governance?

This framework offers facilitation processes for brainstorming, strategy development, decision making, and shared leadership.

It also makes sure there are appropriate conduits of communication amongst working groups. As seen in this graphic...

The structure of food councils usually involves an elected body of council members or Board - this center blue circle; and

there are working committees or action circles that can include anyone from the community. Circle Forward reminds us to have two point people or nodes within those action circles and the main council as a direct flow of communication.

Our team also often uses this concept of multiple point people, so information not lost and there is more resilience in the structure. We want a back and forth flow of information sharing.

We offer trainings and resources for food councils to learn this model and often model it in our facilitative methods with them.

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Collective Impact

clearimpact.com

The next framework is Collective Impact.

This framework offers insights on our long-term strategy, metrics, and evaluation of our work.

Raise your hand if you use this framework in your work? Raise your hand if you have heard of Collective Impact?

If you all know the power of and believe in Collective Impact, then you certainly understand the value of cross-sector collaboration.

Collective Impact is an innovative approach to making collaboration work across sectors and agencies to achieve significant and lasting social change.

It proposes that if we can align our goals, we can have greater, lasting impact.

We created the Collective Impact Toolkit in 2014 as a way to help orgs see themselves as part of the whole: https://ncfoodstrategy.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/collective-impact-toolkit-r3.pdf

We also use the Results-Based Accountability method for action planning and priority setting. We offer RBA trainings with several trainers to food councils.

As a team, we’ve used their methods to define metrics for impact and evaluate our work. We also facilitate action planning with food councils using this method.

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Network Weaving

“If it builds relationships, do it.

www.networkweaver.com

Okay, on to #4 of our Guiding Principles or Frameworks

Network Weaving - Who has heard of or uses Network weaving as an driving concept in their work?

We want people to break down their silos and connect with others. - it can be out of the ordinary or a little scary to walk across and into someone else’s silo, but there is new energy that is created when you take that step to engage new partners.

Networking has long been recognized as a powerful tool for businesses, professionals, and community organizers.

One of the biggest assets to our work is a strong and far-reaching network. And it turns out for us, that everyone eats, and therefore nearly all sectors have a relationship to food.

We believe food is a connector and vehicle to drive community change.

We are proponents of June Holley’s Network Weaving handbook, and constantly preach the value of building a collaborative, broad network.

Networks are a tool for working within wicked problems.

--by their nature, they connect people across agencies and interests.

-- the wider a network and the stronger the relationships within it, the more resiliency an active network has to experiment with innovative solutions

--and, networks can activate around a particular stakeholder issue, work together, and then shift energy and focus to a different issues or environment.

We believe in the power of a network. One of our partners says “If it builds relationships, do it. If it doesn’t, don’t.”

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Racial Equity

Characteristics of Equitable Framing:

Centers marginalized communities and those most affected by systemic inequity
Community-organized
Collaborative–focused on building alliances
Focused on long-term strategy
Community-driven
Benefits all

Partner in this work:

www.dRworks.org

The last of the frameworks that we’re going to share is around Racial Equity.

In all honesty, it is new for us to name this framework specifically and we’re still learning the best approach for consistently embedding this is our work.

We believe for systems change, particularly in the food system, and for coalition building we have to address racial equity.

As Megan will get into shortly, the number of organizations on our project has grown, and the Committee on Racial Equity is a new official partner, receiving funding through our project as of early 2017.

This again is another guiding principle in all of our work, and we are continually working to make sure a racial equity lens is on our approach to resources, facilitation, stakeholder involvement, project team, etc. This past year, we’ve worked to put a specific racial equity lens on our mission, vision, values, hiring process, goals, and approach to the work.

In partnership with CORE, we offer Racial Equity in the Food Systems trainings, are developing tools for communities to use to deepen their awareness of structural racism and how it is impacting their work.

Through these tools and trainings, we are working with communities to build a shared language around racial equity. Shared language, Tools, Trainings

We know we still have more to learn, and are working to tweak our process to make sure has a clear racial equity lens.

So these are the 5 Frameworks or Guiding Principles that we use for our project team. They define who, how, and why we will work together, and provides a clear direction for our team members to follow.

Now, I’m going to hand it over to Megan who is going to share more about how our specific project has evolved and other tools we use to manage an effective multi-sectoral team.

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Our History: How we got here

Framing and Communicating the Project

Collective Impact through Shared Measures

Developing Councils – New & Existing

Developing the Network – councils, organizations, national context

BCBSNCF Funds Policy Action Toolkit through CFSA

Kellogg Funds Food Sovereignty Work

35 Councils

2016

Staff Transition

Collective Impact TrainingToolkit

Statewide Food Network Leaders:

CareShare Facilitation

30 Councils

2015

UNC-School of Gov Webinars

Network Weavers Book Group(s)

Statewide Gathering of Food Councils

25 Councils

2014

Project work begins

Partner Development

10 Councils

2013

Project Funded

BCBSNCF

5 Councils

2012

Statewide Gathering (178 attendees)

Vision, Mission, Values, logo

Micro-grants to 13 councils

Strategic Networking TA with 6 councils

The CEFS Committee on Racial Equity

And the NC Rural Center joins CFS Project Team

33 Councils

2017

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Our History: Growth of the network

Now, at 33

food councils in 2017.

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Our Learnings

Key Takeaway- Invest in Relationships
Key Takeaway- Develop Process

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Key Takeaway: Invest in Relationships

Relationships = GREATER IMPACT

Investing in relationships! There’s a quote that we use often-” if it builds relationships, do it!!”

In the evolution of our work together we have shifted from contract mentality to shared responsibility

For example, Care Share started out as a contractual relationship. Over the period of the first year, it became apparent that the more the we participated in team calls the stronger the relationship became with in the CFS team. It benefitted all of us- the team and the communities we were serving- to connect on a regular basis. As a CFS team we wanted our organizational partners to invest in the relationship to better connect our organizations. We have intentionally worked to provide opportunities and support for our home organizations to learn about our internal team and meet the leaders of our home organizations. We will share more with you in a few slides

Example 2: CFSA working on advocacy at the local level: In 2016 one of our partner organizations sought individual funding to support a project team member for more hours on this project. Jared was funded through CFSA to spend more time with food councils, specifically supporting them to engage in strategic networking and policy action planning. This funding supported development of an online toolkit for communities to use in this work: LINK. We believe that this funding was successful, in part, because of the existing support and success of the project. And it was the first example of multiple organizations bringing money forward to support the project.

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Key Takeaway: Develop Process

Lesson Learned: we need processes in place for a multi-organization & multi-sectoral initiative to work successfully

Communication
Efficiency
Conflicts
Impact

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Ways that we work together

Organizational Processes

Partner Org Check-Ins
Partner Agreement
Partner Key Messages

Our Team Processes

Communication
A Team Approach
Our Culture

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Organizational Processes- Making it Work

One-on-one Check-ins

•Acknowledge organizational priorities

•Mutually beneficial

•Specific area expertise

All-partner meeting

•Information sharing

•Strategic planning

•Relationship building

Partner Organization Check-ins

Our processes have grown out of our experience being multi-organizational. The project team members know our strength as a multi-organizational team but our organizational leaders needed more information to be our champions in the work and to continue supporting staff in being a part of the project. We also believed that our home leadership could benefit from relationships with each other.

We began Partner Organization Check ins

One-on-one check-ins have the purpose of acknowledging the priorities of the specific organization. It is an opportunity to make sure our work is mutually beneficial and contributed to a larger goal to improve the quality of life for people in NC. The one-on-one check ins allow us to get into more detail specifically looking at the sector representation, expertise in the area, and to help us be accountable

All Partners meeting:

The all partners meeting provided an opportunity for CFS to share our work, celebrate our successes and learn from our challenges.

It provides a time for feedback and strategic planning with our organizational leaders

The All partner meetings provide an opportunity for our respective leaders to meet and build relationship among each other.

Ultimately, increasing collective impact with our respective home organizational leaders working together.

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Organizational Processes- Making It Work

Partner Agreement: Roles and Commitment to Each Other

Partner Key Messages - tool for how they be advocates/champions for the work

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A Kick Ass Team!

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Communication is Vital!

Circle Forward-collaborative governance model/tool

Virtual logistics calls & circle calls

In person retreats
Internal documents

Google Drive

What’s going on?

Where’s that file?

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A Team Approach

Clear roles

Shared leadership

Trust and Accountability

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Our Culture

Intentional focus on our values
We have fun!
We believe in our vision!
We need each other!

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Benefits of a Multi-Organizational Team

Multi-sectoral expertise
Accountability to the area of expertise
Brings credibility with multiple partners
Access to a broad array of resources
Varied funding avenues
Added resiliency
Broader network reach
Ultimately- increased success and impact

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A Recap of Resources

Whole Measures of Community-Based Food Systems
Network Weaver
Circle Forward
Collective Impact
Racial Equity
Partner Agreement
Key Messages

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A Time for Q & A

Megan Bolejack

mbolejack@caresharehealth.org

Gini Knight

gini_knight@ncsu.edu

Abbey Piner, Project Director

abbey_piner@ncsu.edu

communityfoodstrategies.org