In Visual Rulemaking, Prof. Elizabeth G. Porter and Prof. Kathryn A. Watts challenge agencies to break free of dense text and to explore a new universe of “visual rulemaking.” Citing colorful examples from the past few years, the authors urge agencies to make greater use of videos, images, and social media to promote transparency and expand public engagement. The authors also fully acknowledge the legal risks of pouring such new wine into old wineskins.

Porter and Watts’ article helpfully underscores the values that should be reflected in the regulatory process, including the worthy goals of making regulatory activities more transparent, increasing political accountability, and encouraging public participation. There is a long, bipartisan history of efforts to further these aims in the rulemaking process; Porter and Watts’ piece illuminates one new emerging strategy to support these goals.

The premise in Visual Rulemaking, by Professors Elizabeth Porter and Kathryn Watts—that graphics and visuals are gaining traction on the written word in the regulatory setting—seems to threaten the very nature of everything to which lawyers have dedicated their careers. But the transformation they identify is real and necessary.

Profs. Porter and Watts’ article, Visual Rulemaking, explores the potential of visual images to “strengthen and further democratize” the rulemaking process by promoting transparency, accountability, and increased public participation.

This Article uncovers an emerging and significant phenomenon that has gathered momentum only within the last few years: the use of visual media to develop, critique, and engender support for (or opposition to) high-stakes, and sometimes virulently controversial, federal rulemakings. Visuals have played little historical role in rulemaking. Instead, the rarified realm of rulemaking has remained technocratic in its form—defined by linear analysis, blackand- white text, and expert reports.

The concept of formalizing an initiative’s agreements in writing certainly improves its chances of success, but it also introduces challenges which Crowder does a credible job articulating. The comments that emerged from my review of the article involve the other attributes of an initiative and its corresponding written agreement that would serve to improve the chances of a CII’s success. These attributes include the team and its leadership, key drivers of the initiative, the form of and process of carrying out the agreement, and the unaccounted-for costs of the initiative.

Patience Crowder has developed an important Article, which in its present form will significantly benefit the legal community and those organizations that have already embraced the concept of collective impact, perhaps experimented with the approach, or are prepared to act as consultants to communities interested in exploring it. However, there are many within the foundation community who do not yet see themselves participating in this approach at all.

Patience Crowder's article on collective impact agreements summarizes some important considerations that need to take place as the impact transaction approach is further explored. In this piece, the author frames some of the points raised in her article through a practitioner's lens, and adds a few others for future consideration.

Collective impact initiatives (CIIs) bring together actors with diverse experiences and perspectives to focus on an issue, with the potential to create new skill sets and solutions to long-standing problems. Professor Crowder posits that the absence of an existing contractual framework is one of the emerging barriers to the effectiveness of CIIs, many of which are currently based on informal relationships and not enforceable agreements. In particular, the author believes we need to develop practical contract drafting strategies to memorialize collective impact strategies.

“Collective impact” is a relatively new terminology emerging out of the philanthropic community for describing structured collaboration among parties who are focused on alleviating a particular social ill. Branded as “a way to better utilize resources and identify effective practices,” a collective impact initiative (CII) intentionally recruits actors from diverse industries and with diverse perspectives to focus on a specific social ill. In many respects, collective impact participants “agree to agree” over the course of an ongoing relationship.