Since 2018, The Civic Canopy has served as a capacity-building partner for The Colorado Health Foundation’s locally-focused work. This partnership has equipped the Canopy team with time and resources to connect with leaders across the state – including Montrose.

The Canopy’s Montrose team has been visiting the area and getting to know about collaborative work since 2020. For two years, the team connected with individuals living, working, and recreating in Montrose to learn about where people were coming together to solve local problems. The story our team heard repeatedly was about the siloing of work; each person and organization stay in their lane and long-term, cross-sector collaboration is rare. When we asked individuals about their visions for Montrose and the opportunities to bring these visions to light, their responses were similar. We were curious about what would happen if we brought these people together to create a shared vision – a shared Result – for Montrose; would these individuals see themselves as part of a greater collective working to serve Montrose?

In January 2023, The Civic Canopy brought a training on Collective Impact to Montrose and invited the leaders we had come to know, including representatives from local non-profits, City workers, and small business owners. The objectives of the training were to:

• Understand the core conditions of collective impact
• Understand how the Community Learning Model creates the conditions for effective collective impact, and
• Identify ways to make collective impact successful in Montrose

After learning about collective impact and the Community Learning Model, training participants got time to work with the different sections of the model with the following practice vision: All Montrose residents enjoy the outdoors. Participants followed their natural curiosity to different tables set up to apply elements of Results, Include, Learn, and Culture of Collaboration in small groups. Attendees curious to explore Results worked with their groups to further refine the vision, indicators of success, and strategies to try. Attendees at the Include table explored how to include people, perspectives, and systems involved in bringing the vision to life. The Learn table discussed how to collect data and measure results. Lastly, the Culture of Collaboration table talked about how to create continuous communication which leads to trust, mutual objectives, and common motivation.

The ripple effects of this training are still unfolding through new relationships, collaborations, and connections. One of the small business owners has joined the planning committee for the Mexican American Development Association’s annual celebration. City representatives are exploring what would be the necessary conditions for improved community engagement efforts. The local recreation department is securing resources to improve access for families and people living in sobriety. An executive director is looking to bring additional Canopy training to their Montrose-based executive director roundtable. As these new relationships, collaborations, and connections continue to evolve, Canopy will continue to be ready to respond as needs and opportunities arise.