Today, issues that significantly affect global and national security, economic well-being, and the health and safety of citizens around the world have become key challenges to decision makers in the public sector, private sector, and civil society. These are large-scale issues of unprecedented complexity: confronting global climate change, rebuilding urban infrastructure, combating water scarcity, preparing for pandemics, dealing with aging populations, preventing terrorist attack, and maintaining quality of life in the face of globalization. At first glance, these problems seem intractable. But in an era of expanding global networks and interdependence, they cannot be ignored.

Such problems cannot be solved by government, business, or civil society alone. It takes a megacommunity. Leaders of many organizations must work together toward common goals, without any one of them being in control of the whole system. A megacommunity initiative therefore combines focused conversation, deliberate development of leadership capabilities, and results-oriented action in an open-ended network of leaders from multiple organizations. During the last few years, conducting this kind of work in a variety of settings in Europe, North America, and Asia, we have identified five critical elements. Two of them, three-sector engagement and an overlap of vital interests, can be thought of as preconditions. If they can be found in the social soil of an area, then a megacommunity can grow there.

The other three elements, convergence, structure, and adaptability, are critical features of the megacommunity design. An initiative that takes them into account has a far greater chance of success than an initiative that ignores them. These three features are not necessarily obvious; they require conscious attention. That’s why it is so important to spell them out, as we do here.

Three-sector engagement. The megacommunity concept goes far beyond such well-meaning single-sector approaches as sustainable development or corporate social responsibility, both of which often represent an ongoing obligation or duty rather than a collective movement toward a mutual aim. Unlike public–private partnerships, which typically focus on relatively narrow purposes and tend toward limited alliances (in other words, they operate only as long as their formal agreements stay in effect), megacommunities take on much larger goals. They are ongoing and mutable over time, and they demand a highly engaged orientation from the leaders, and many of the members, of the various organizations involved.

Megacommunities are also different from public–private partnerships. Traditionally, such partnerships are struck between governments (or intergovernmental organizations such as the U.N. or NATO) and companies. Although public–private partnerships work in certain circumscribed, contract-bound situations, their dual-sector nature is a common limitation. They rarely develop the capabilities needed, for example, to address the new, seemingly boundless, and ever-evolving issues of sustainable globalization.

Among other things, a megacommunity’s triple-sector nature addresses the fact that civil society is often left out of the public–private equation. As shown by the case of Enel SpA described in “The Megacommunity Manifesto” (by Mark Gerencser, Fernando Napolitano, and Reginald Van Lee, s+b, Summer 2006) — in which a large utility company regained its legitimacy by engaging the citizens of the Veneto region of Italy — increased transparency and speed of information makes the civil society component ever more significant and vital to success. It becomes a bigger, stronger player.

But that’s not the whole story. The three-sector approach also provides leverage for retention of local identity alongside creation of a viable middle class and competitiveness on the global playing field. It represents a movement in which contact with the outside world, instead of draining jobs and making a local system vulnerable, strengthens the quality of life, economic vitality, and community health so important to our global future.

Examples of the three-sector approach in practice range from planetwide systems, such as the community of corporations, governments, and NGOs concerned with rain forest management and conservation, to local enterprise-related environments, such as the Harlem Small Business Initiative (also described in “The Megacommunity Manifesto”).

The Harlem Initiative example begins to clarify the specific benefits that each sector brings to the table. Business — the private sector — brings a resource base, an action agenda, depth in problem solving, and capital. Government — the public sector — brings the rule of law, the promise of long-term stability, sovereignty, a tax base, and natural resources. The civil sector brings accountability, sensitivity to how the issues at play might affect the individual and the environment, and credibility in arenas where business and government fall short.

Involvement in a megacommunity allows any participating part of any sector to use the abilities, the understanding, and even the prejudices of the other sectors. When these sectors work together, there is the potential for a kind of “swarm intelligence” to emerge, one that allows community members to generate innovative ideas, create new energy around the topic, and identify different ways of approaching the issue. It also means that more participants are available to do what needs to be done.

At the same time, and on the most individual level, megacommunity participation keeps anyone from being shut out.

An overlap of vital interests. One of the surprising aspects of megacommunities is that, most likely, you are already part of one without realizing it. In fact, you may be part of several. Although formal megacommunities are consciously developed, they usually grow out of the latent megacommunities that surround us. Before the involvement of the William J. Clinton Foundation, for example, Harlem’s small business environment was a latent megacommunity. Latent megacommunities almost always exist when the following features are present: