Tynesia Boyea-Robinson wants nonprofits to work together in ways that have a real impact, and don’t just sound good in an annual report. Her book, Just Change: How to Collaborate for Lasting Impact, lays out strategies for accomplishing this goal: finding the root causes of issues, using data to devise strategy, focusing on leverage points, creating feedback mechanisms to keep improving and many more.

As Chief Impact Officer at Living Cities, Boyea-Robinson has years of experience helping leaders in government, business and nonprofits collaborate on innovative projects to improve the lives of low-income people. The book challenges you to rethink everything from how change comes about (what are the tipping points in systems-level change?) to building effective partnerships (learning to speak a common language across different sectors).

All of this is aimed at the ultimate goal: making significant improvements in people’s lives, which is well-illustrated in Boyea-Robinson’s approach to creating shared goals. In her view, goals should focus on their impact on society (“By 2025, we will achieve 90% employment in this city”) and not on the nonprofit itself (“We will increase the number of job referrals in our program”). Starting with that approach, the book provides numerous strategies, case studies of successful collaborations and helpful tools for analyzing how to get the most out of your work with other organizations.