Towards greater collective impact: Building collaborative capacity in Cork city’s LCDC

Collaboration is an important means of tackling local socio-economic challenges. This paper looks at how the collaborative capacity of Ireland’s community development leaders can be improved. The most recent efforts to establish a more coordinated and coherent approach to community development saw the introduction of a new local committee structure, known as local community development committees (LCDCs). LCDCs were expected to enhance collaboration between public, private and third sector socio-economic partners. However, effective intersectoral collaboration is often difficult to attain. A programme of capacity building can play a key part in supporting collaborative working between local leaders. Based on the findings from a place-based leadership development workshop, this paper discusses the barriers to collaboration facing community development leaders and how these might be overcome. Surfacing and working through tensions to enable clarity, through enhanced mutual understanding and strong relationships across community development committees, is vitally important. To this end, a practical and evidence-based approach to improving collaboration between local leaders is argued for.