Systemic Collective Impact and Rapid City's Ongoing Success Story

Cross-sector and inter-disciplinary coordination for complex social change requires the strategic narratives and insights that can come from systemic collective impact, also known as community-based system dynamics. Systemic collective impact is a community engagement approach that uses system dynamics and collective impact to address problems arising in complex social systems. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s website describes system dynamics as helping “us understand, design, and manage change. Using data and technology, System Dynamics models the relationships between all the parts of a system and how those relationships influence the behavior of the system over time” (2019). Rapid City, South Dakota, undertook a systemic collective impact approach in 2015. Results from the work have been excellent and are a tribute to the commitment of a cross-disciplinary collaboration of Native American leadership, nonprofits, government, business, faith communities, and citizens who use the social service systems.