How we work

Steps for engagement 

1. Begin: A founding community leader identifies us as a catalyst to the change they desire in their community and invites us to begin an engagement.  
    
2. Recruit: Organize community groups who share a goal or need (i.e. non-profits, schools, churches, industry, law enforcement, government agencies) to form a Collaborative Impact Group (CIG).
    
3. Diversify: Indigo assists the CIG in tying together the various ethnic, demographic, socio-economic, generational constituents that genuinely share the problem, interest, concern or need.   
    
4. Commit: The CIG formally commits to know themselves, to know each other, to understand their community, and to come to a consensus on how they are going to define the problem, and how they are going to collectively solve it.  
    
5. Provide Insight: Individuals in the CIG take the Indigo Inventory.  Indigo coaches explain the results to both the individuals and the collective through a series of experiential sessions.  
    
6. Compile Data: Indigo’s data analysts compile group data analytics, set up a cloud based platform, and provide access to appropriate community members.    
    
7. Align: Based on the Indigo Inventory results and facilitated sessions, the CIG aligns on next steps, it’s definition of success, and what is needed in order to realize that success.  
    
8. Create a Funding Profile: The CIG creates a profile that Indigo takes to funding partners who are interested in achieving similar goals.  
    
9. Scale: An Indigo Community Leadership Center is embedded in a school or college, enabling new participants to continually join the CIG and train new leadership.
      
10. Sustain: Indigo provides personnel to the community (see EdCorps) for the initial two-three years of the project to fill stop-gap roles, coordinate players, raise-up new leaders, and facilitate communication.    In addition, since Indigo’s collaborative impact model catalyzes entrepreneurial opportunities, each new business formed will commit to ways in which they will give back to their community.  

How we begin Engaging In Communities

Most of the communities we currently work with brought us into an emerging project because they saw the value of the identity work we do with schools using the Indigo Inventory.  The inventory is a sophisticated multi-dimensional online tool that measures strengths, behaviors, motivators, soft skills and mindset.  The process by which constituents engage with the tool and each other brings out inherent strengths in the community both in individuals and the collective.  It became apparent that something special wanted to happen in these places and there were enough “Initiators” who were willing to coalesce into a bigger vision.    

The ROle of Indigo Impact Initiative (III)

In collaborative impact terms, III serves as the backbone organization.  In practical terms we work directly local schools and each organization in the community project to help them define success, tell their stories, and bring external talent to bear on the problem.  The data from the Inventory allows us to align local talent into needed jobs and program initiatives.  As we grow, we see one of our major roles as training and recruiting both internal and external “EdCorps” who have entrepreneurial talent to engage community stakeholders, drive change, and leverage existing resources in each community.   

Community Initiators 

Our capitalist society is moving into a new era, where scarcity is replaced by abundance and where zero sum games are less appealing.  The #1 core value that stands out about our Community Initiators is they believe when we all win, they win too.  It’s not about personal gain, income, or recognition.  They are in it for the long haul and fiercely believe in their communities and in the power of passionate people with a shared purpose and something practical to tackle together. 

EdCorps 

The intersection of entrepreneurship and technology is fulcrum by which communities (particular rural communities) with thrive or die.  We believe the spirit of entrepreneurship is available to everyone, young or old, privileged or not.  Not everyone is the kind of person to start and run their own business but everyone can be involved in this kind of thinking.  Engaging in meaninful entrepreneurial enterprises is a component of all the work we do in communities and schools.  EdCorps is the recruiting arm for placing those people in communities.