Impact Collaborative

About the Impact Collaborative

The Impact Collaborative is home to a national network of Land-grant university professionals led by the Extension Foundation to empower individuals and the communities they serve to cocreate solutions through Extension programming that have greater sustainability with the goal of making a greater impact locally. 

The Impact Collaborative was developed in partnership with the Cooperative Extension System since 2014 and continues to evolve to meet the needs of Extension professionals nationally. It is guided by the expressed needs of Cooperative Extension professionals. Since 2018, this has included developing a skills curriculum to help participants think about program development in new ways, and training hundreds of Extension professionals in this curriculum to serve as resources in their local communities, county Extension offices, and in their state Extension system. In addition, the Impact Collaborative has led dozens of national events aimed at equipping Extension professionals and their partners with new skills, resources, knowledge, and tools to help enhance program development, pilot, and implementation efforts. 

Since its inception, thousands of Cooperative Extension professionals along with their teams have engaged with the Impact Collaborative. Today, the Impact Collaborative is a critical component of how the Extension Foundation delivers its national programs and services. For example, the model of how the Impact Collaborative supports individuals and teams can be seen across the Extension Collaborative for Immunization Teaching and Engagement (EXCITE) supporting 96 adult immunization programs, and New Technologies for Ag Extension (NTAE) serving 79 Land-grant university programs. As the Technical Service Provider for the NEXTGEN funding opportunity, the Impact Collaborative model provided support and expertise to eligible institutions across the United States. 

The Impact Collaborative continues to be at the heart of the Extension Foundation’s mission and vision and how it delivers its national funded programs and services. In 2023, the Extension Foundation will be conducting a needs assessment of the Cooperative Extension system to shape the next evolution of the Impact Collaborative to keep its events, services, and network in tandem with the needs and challenges of the Cooperative Extension system going forward. 

Impact Collaborative

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Our mission is to help Cooperative Extension generate a more visible, measurable, local impact.

We achieve this through our nationally funded programs made possible by member dollars and cooperative agreements with federal agencies, and through partnering on state, regional, and national initiatives with Cooperative Extension and the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP). We serve all Land Grant Universities, regardless of membership status.

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The Extension Foundation is a nonprofit established by Extension Directors and Administrators nationwide. Extension Foundation is embedded in the U.S. Cooperative Extension System and serves on Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP).

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This website is supported in part by New Technologies for Ag Extension (funding opportunity no. USDA-NIFA-OP-010186), grant no. 2023-41595-41325 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Extension Foundation.

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