This Living Cities’ article features highlights from an interview with former three-term Mayor of Minneapolis, R.T. Rybak, who is now a part-time Senior Advisor to Living Cities. As Mayor, R.T. participated in several collective impact initiatives focusing on an array of issues including youth violence, transportation expansion, education reform, and chronic homelessness. “Collective impact initiatives can really shift the power dynamic putting mayors and other elected officials on equal footing with community. That power shift forces elected officials to recognize how much he or she needs other people to bring about real systemic change that goes beyond their term in office,” he writes.