To begin, collective action is the working together of a group of people who share a common interest to achieve a specific objective.1 To help better understand what collective action is, three examples include: a family; a Parent-Teacher Association (PTA); and, a cooperative (co-op) organization. First, a family is a group of people who often live together to bring stability, love and happiness to one another in various forms. Second, in a PTA parents collaborate and plan actions to better support the functions of their children’s school. Finally, the co-op example is one many people associate with the term collective action; co-ops are member-owned and operated, where members work together, share decision-making power and receive specific benefits as part of their collaboration. In short, any action that involves multiple people coming together trying to accomplish a specific goal is collective action.

 
People act collectively because working together allows people to do more than if they only worked by themselves. When people work together they can leverage resources and skills.2 An individual person would not need to do everything alone. If each person did everything by themselves, they would essentially be re-creating the wheel every time. Partnering with others allows each to learn from one another and get more done without wasting as much time, resources and energy.
 
Working together across differences
 
Working together with people who are different than yourself is critical to having resilient communities and organizations. Simply, this is because including diverse experiences and perspectives leads to the creation of more ideas, more effective problem-solving and greater chances of success.3 People who have similar perspectives are often limited by similar unseen biases. Whereas, a group of people with varied perspectives brings new thought and can help more easily make seen and move beyond unseen biases.4 In short, diversity strengthens the functioning and creation of successful outcomes of communities and organizations.
 
Imagine a city is trying to prepare for possible likely future disasters. They are doing so in order to best protect their residents and be able to plan the return of normal functioning across all sectors (schools, economic, government, etc.) as soon as possible following likely disasters. Having more and varied perspectives from all parts of the city included in the disaster planning will better prepare for possible ramifications and includes the past strategies that have worked for community members in previous disruptions and disasters.5 Not including diverse perspectives ultimately leads to oversight and greater damage and destruction, almost always most greatly affecting the city’s vulnerable and marginalized populations.6 There are ample examples in the U.S. and across the world where vulnerable and marginalized populations received the brunt of the impact of disasters, that often could have been lessened with more effective planning that included diverse input and perspectives.
 
The example of common-pool resource communities: Working together to achieve sustainability
 
Common-pool resource communities are those that use or consume a common-pool resource or good as a staple product for the community. The designation of a common-pool resource is an economic term. It means that this good or resource can be depleted by overconsumption and that people cannot be excluded from consuming it. Common-pool goods differ from public, private and toll goods. Unlike common-pool goods, public goods and toll goods cannot be used-up in the using or consuming of them, and private goods and toll goods can exclude use or consumption to specific people. Seen in Figure 1, some resources that fall into the category of common-pool goods include water, fish stock, and timber

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