The Collective Change Lab (CCL) is a left-of-center group that seeks to replace criminal trials and prisons, systems it claims have inherent racial and wealth imbalances, with a system it calls “restorative justice” that will use dialogue and trauma-sharing to reduce crime and criminal punishments. ¹

CCL founder and executive director John Kania often collaborates with Mark Kramer, the founder of FSG, a non-profit consulting firm for left-of-center nonprofits. ² Together, they wrote “Collective Impact” for the Stanford Social Innovation Review in Winter 2011. ³ In 2016, Kania and Kramer partnered with FSG and the Aspen Institute, a left leaning think tank, to publish “principles of practice” that called for addressing what they said were barriers to equitable outcomes like systemic racism and class. ⁴

Initiatives

The Storytelling for Systems Change project seeks to achieve social change through processing individual and community trauma. This project has a group of “Systems Storytellers” that prioritize narratives from racial and gender minorities. Systems Storytellers include Tara Roberts of Atlanta, who learned how to scuba dive for the sake of joining “Divers with a Purpose,” a group of primarily Black divers and researchers who search for underwater artifacts of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. ⁵ David Bornstein, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Solutions Journalism, which trains journalists to promote policy and economic approaches above reporting facts, is also a Storyteller. ⁶

Collective Healing for Systems Change is a project conducted with The Wellbeing Project and Georgetown University. Collective Change Lab founder John Kania, director Katherine Milligan, and staff member Laura Calderon de la Barca wrote in the Stanford Social Innovation Review that recognizing trauma in ourselves, others, and the systems we live in can help solve social problems, defined by the authors as child welfare, criminal justice, health care, and climate change concerns. ⁷

Transforming Power Dynamics promotes the concept of Collective Power. This project supported Californians for Justice and their student activism to address inter-ethnic educational disparities by “challenging reliance on merely rational premises. ^{8 9}

Activities

In April 2020, a mass shooter killed 22 people and injured many more in Nova Scotia, Canada. After media reports indicated that the shooter was also a domestic abuser, the Canadian government convened a Mass Casualty Commission to study “gender-based violence” (GBV) and its causes. The Commission used Collective Change Lab’s Systems of Change Model to make recommendations on how to avoid GBV in the future, including challenging our “mental models” which assume racism, misogyny, colonialism, and “other isms.” ¹⁰

Leadership

John Kania is the founder and executive director of Collective Change Lab. From 2001 to 2018, he was the global managing director at FSG. He recently served as a juror for the Carnegie Foundation’s Profiles in Collective Leadership program, a $2 million grant project offering education and professional opportunities to low-income young adults. ¹¹

Katherine Milligan is a Director at Collective Change Lab. She was named one of the Top 100 Women in Social Enterprise by the Euclid Network, a left-of-center organization focused on people who create start-up organizations that focus on social issues such as climate change that is funded by the European Union. ¹²

Tad Khosa is Communications Manager. He identifies “first and foremost as a militant progressive.” ¹³ He previously worked as Media and Communications Manager for the Equal Education Law Centre, a South African group of lawyers working on social issues in the education system. ¹⁴

Financials

In 2022, the Collective Change Lab earned $831,883 in revenue, and incurred $894,639 in expenses. It ended the year with $667,747 in assets. In 2021, it earned $750,000 and spent $59,364, ending the year with $690,636 in assets. ¹⁵

In 2021, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a major liberal grantmaker and academic prize grantor, awarded CCL a $250,000 grant. ^{16 17}

1.  “Story,” Collective Change Lab. Accessed April 1, 2024. https://www.collectivechangelab.org/story
2. Jennifer Splansky Juster. “Redefining Collective Impact.” FSG. November 12, 2021. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.fsg.org/blog/redefining-collective-impact/
3. John Kania and Mark Kramer. (2011). Collective Impact. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 9(1), 36–41. https://doi.org/10.48558/5900-KN19. Accessed March 28, 2024.  https://ssir.org/articles/entry/collective_impact#.
4. Sheri Brady and Jennifer Splansky Juster. “Collective Impact Principles of Practice: Putting Collective Impact Into Action.” Collective Impact Forum. April 17, 2016. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://collectiveimpactforum.org/blog/collective-impact-principles-of-practice-putting-collective-impact-into-action/
5. “Home Page”. Diving With a Purpose. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://divingwithapurpose.org/
6. “Systems Storytelling Project.” Collective Change Lab. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.collectivechangelab.org/storytellingproject
7.  Laura Calderon de la Barca, Katherine Milligan, and John Kania. (2024)  Healing Systems. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/healing-trauma-systems
8. “Whole Power.” Collective Change Lab. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.collectivechangelab.org/wholepower2
9. “Explore Our Work.” Californians for Justice. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://caljustice.org/our-work/
10. Sue Bookchin. “The Mass Casualty Commission and the possibility of transformation.” The Philanthropist Journal. March 4, 2024. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://thephilanthropist.ca/2024/03/the-mass-casualty-commission-and-the-possibility-of-transformation/
11. “Profiles in Collective Leadership.” Carnegie Corporation of New York. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.carnegie.org/news/articles/profiles-in-collective-leadership/
12. “Home Page.” Euclid Network. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://euclidnetwork.eu/
13. “Tad Khosa on LinkedIn…” Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tad-khosa-024aa5b7/?originalSubdomain=za
14. “About Us.” Equal Education Law Center. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://eelawcentre.org.za/who-we-are/about-us/
15. “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax.” Collective Change Lab. 2021. Accessed March 28, 2024.https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/852473039/202300539349301205/full
16. ^[1] “Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax.” Carnegie Corporation of New York. 2021. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131628151/202241899349100304/full
17. “Carnegie Corporation of New York Board Approves 35 Grants Totaling $23,970,500.” June 24, 2021. Accessed March 28, 2024. https://www.carnegie.org/news/articles/carnegie-corporation-new-york-board-approves-35-grants-totaling-23970500/