The Collective Impact Framework
Cultivating well-being requires collective action. The cultural transformation necessary to improve wellness outcomes for community members over time at a place like Georgia Tech cannot be achieved through any one unit or cabinet area. That is why we use the Collective Impact Framework, which brings people and units together across an organization — in a structured way — to achieve social change.
Collective impact initiatives are successful when they:
Facilitate a common agenda
This means coming together to collectively define a problem and create solutions. Our common agenda is the Cultivate Well-Being strategic initiative, and our solutions are the action strategies in our Cultivate Well-Being Roadmap with a Focus on Faculty and Staff and our Cultivate Well-Being Roadmap with a Focus on Students.
Establish shared measurement
This means tracking progress in a way that allows for continuous improvement, learning, and accountability.
Foster mutually reinforcing activities
This means allowing each person and unit to do what they do best and identifying new ways of working together to achieve the Institute’s goals around cultivating well-being.
Encourage continuous communication
This means building trust through transparency, accountability, shared resources, and strengthening relationships across campus to do the work of cultivating well-being.
Have a strong backbone
This means having a dedicated team that provides the support infrastructure to help the Institute achieve its goals around cultivating well-being
Our Stakeholders
The collective impact process includes multiple levels of stakeholder engagement:
Collaboration with and input from faculty, staff, and students shapes our process and outcomes in multiple ways, which are shared in digital reports and in presentations.
The Advisory Boards are composed of multi-disciplinary leaders, decision-makers, and members of the Tech community who provide strategic direction, champion the effort, and align their own unit’s work to the common agenda.
Champions and Executive Sponsors serve on the President’s Cabinet or in other positions of influence to ensure integration with the Institute Strategic Plan and to designate resources.
The Collective Impact process is also informed by our setting in Atlanta, in collaboration with the University System of Georgia, alumni and families. Similarly, our successes will have a positive impact on the well-being of those with whom we work, play, live, learn and love, as well as honor our interdependence as people, place and planet.
The 8 Dimensions of Wellness
Georgia Tech is utilizing an eight-dimension model for wellness to encourage our students and employees to think holistically about their wellness efforts and behaviors. Individual wellness alone is not sufficient to transform culture. Combined with efforts to advance policies and practices at the unit- and Institute-levels, wellness actions are a component of overall well-being for person, place and planet. Below are brief definitions of each dimension adapted from work conducted by the Global Wellness Institute, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the University of Maryland at College Park.
Emotional
Coping effectively with life stressors, having self-esteem, and expressing optimism, as well as being aware of our feelings, accepting the full range of emotions in self and others and expressing them appropriately.
Environmental
Honoring the interdependent, dynamic relationship we have with our environment – whether social, natural, built or digital – and our responsibility for sustaining it; occupying pleasant, nurturing, safe and stimulating spaces and places.
Financial
Having basic needs met, applying resource management skills to live within one’s means, making informed financial decisions, setting realistic financial goals, and preparing for short- and long term needs or emergencies.
Intellectual
Finding ways to engage in lifelong learning, expand knowledge and skills, and interact with the world through problem-solving, experimentation and curiosity, as well as thinking critically, analyzing rationally, and exploring new ideas.
Occupational
Getting personal satisfaction and enrichment from work, hobbies and volunteer efforts that are consistent with one’s values, goals and lifestyle, as well as taking a proactive approach to career planning and growth.
Physical
Replenishing the body through physical activity, sleep, and nutrition; engaging in no-or-low-risk alcohol, tobacco and other drug use; conducting routine health care/screenings; and adopting preventive measures such as vaccines and condom use.
Social
Connecting and engaging with others and our communities in meaningful ways, having a well-developed support system, demonstrating intercultural competencies, and having a sense of belonging and inclusion.
Spiritual
Searching for and/or having a sense of purposeful existence and meaning in life, as well as seeking harmony with the universe, extending compassion toward others, practicing gratitude, and engaging in self-reflection.