How it all began...Tenacious Change had its beginning in 1991 when Tom Klaus and Ed Saunders first met. Tom was a Program Director for a community-based nonprofit in Des Moines, Iowa. Ed was on the faculty of the University of Iowa School of Social Work. Ed’s office was on the Des Moines campus and he was contracted to be the evaluation researcher for Tom's program.
In those early years, they worked together to develop and replicate a school-based adolescent pregnancy prevention program. Their efforts were successful and eventually the It Takes Two program was replicated in more than 20 states. Those early efforts required the program to have a baseline of community acceptance and support to succeed. Their research and experience taught them the value of community engagement and mobilization in creating that baseline and an environment where the program could take root, survive, and thrive. Their collaboration continued despite professional changes. Tom took on the leadership of a statewide organization in Iowa and eventually moved to Washington, DC to work for a global youth advocacy organization. Ed remained with the University of Iowa and moved to the main campus in Iowa City where he would eventually become the Director of the School of Social Work. |
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Evolution...
As Tom and Ed tackled the challenge of measuring community engagement and mobilization, and then ensuring program sustainability, they saw the need to create a measurable framework that considered these factors. What emerged was a framework which is known today as the Stages of Community Transition. It describes the process of community change through four distinct, measurable stages. Successful movement through the stages results in sustained (long-lasting) community change.
The Four Stages of Community Transition
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1. Awareness and education through relationship building and engagement that informs community members about the issue, the need for change, and invites participation in the change.
2. Legitimization which occurs as those leading the change gain the reputation as the “go to” group in the community on the issue as a result of continuous engagement with the community. |
3. Transformation which occurs as a critical mass of community members align with the change and actively support the effort. This includes those who were late adopters, some resistors, and even some who had been opponents.
4. Normalization - the final stage when the community as a whole has embraced the change and it has become unthinkable to “snapback” to the way things were before. Normalization is the point at which the change has become integrated, embedded, and actualized into the community as the “new normal.” |
Infrastructure...Driving Community Change
Upon completion of the Stages of Community Transition model, an important question remained: What drives the process through the stages?
Drawing on research and knowledge gained from their own experiences participating in and leading collaborative efforts, Tom and Ed identified the presence of a high-performing infrastructure as a key factor in driving change. In addition, they concluded that it is not enough to simply have an infrastructure, but that its nature and how it functions are important. |
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Synergy.
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As Tom and Ed were finalizing their work on infrastructure, they learned of FSG’s collective impact framework as well as the work of the Tamarack Institute, a social change organization in Canada with deep experience in community change and development initiatives. These two organizations partnered in pioneering the “Champions for Change” events which introduced collective impact to a broader audience. Tom was invited by FSG to participate in the first “Champions for Change” in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he met Paul Born and Liz Weaver of the Tamarack Institute. This collaboration brought to light how closely aligned Tom and Ed's work was with Tamarack’s interpretation of collective impact, and how the efforts had been evolving in similar directions over the same time period.
Tom and Ed's work ultimately coalesced around a new operational paradigm for collective impact. As an operational paradigm, it focuses on the processes needed to move a community change initiative through the Stages of Community Transition to achieve long-term change. Or, put more simply: how to “do” collective impact. Tenacious Change was born. |
Why the name?The name, Tenacious Change, was given to this framework in 2018. Change itself is tenacious—never stopping. Because change is continuous, Tenacious Change is focused on building the capacity of a community to be resilient so it can change and adapt as needed. It is neither a recipe nor formula and the change is not dependent on any individual but the whole community. However, tenacity is not just about our willingness to engage in the work of continuous change. It is to be tenacious about how we do the work and whom we include in it. Tenacious Change is tenacious about including as many community members as possible in meaningful participation in the change. This means people from all sectors—context and content experts. It means everyone who agrees with the change. It means those who aren’t sure about the change. It even means finding a way to work with those who oppose it, and bringing them along. |
