COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DECISION-MAKING IN COLLECTIVE IMPACT GROUPS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY

Abstract

This phenomenological study focused on better understanding the experience of participating in community-driven decision-making within collective impact groups. Through interviewing both collective impact facilitators (n=12) and collective impact group members (n=6), experiences related to both barriers and supportive elements arose. These experiences were coded into themes which ranged from external pressures and meeting logistics to interpersonal interactions, power dynamics, and self-awareness. Findings demonstrate that on average, these stakeholders experience effective community-driven decision-making occurring roughly 50% of the time within collective impact groups. Further, the way people define community-driven decision-making varies, especially during times where the group does not naturally agree on a course of action. This data helped highlight the need to create applied definitions of equity and community, to support psychological safety for group participants and facilitators, and to recognize alignment between barriers to community-driven decision-making and threats to psychological safety. Overall, this information can be used to guide future research related to creating mechanisms to measure the effectiveness of community-driven decision-making across different types of decisions and different types of groups. Also, it can help elevate ways group members can hold one another accountable to ensure equity and inclusivity is built into both group processes and outcomes related to decision-making.