May 23 2014 Strategy, Tactics, and Intersection

Guest Post by Frank Weil, Chairman of The Intersector Project

When trying to solve everyday problems, people typically start with a strategy – they figure out where they want to go, and how they want to get there.

Solving complex social and political problems is no different: it is always a matter of making choices. One can try to go it alone; use legal pressures; try to influence political process; write fiery screeds to newspapers; or, try to collaborate. More and more, people across all the sectors are taking the route of ‘collaborative governance’ – the academic label for the intersector process.

That is where tactics come into play. The Intersector Project has researched dozens of cases across the country which demonstrate the intersector process at work. From those cases, we have created a toolkit of tactics that ordinary folks can apply to whatever problems confront them.

The very first step of solving a problem that spans sectors is to decide which strategy holds the most promise, and if that strategy is collaboration, the second and crucial step is choosing tools from The Intersector Project’s toolkit to begin in – practical terms – to address the problems at hand.