256 pages
6 x 9
13 photos and illustrations
Something new and important is afoot. Nonprofit and philanthropic organizations are under increasing pressure to do more and to do better to increase and improve productivity with fewer resources. Social entrepreneurs, community-minded leaders, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropists now recognize that to achieve greater impact they must adopt a network-centric approach to solving difficult problems. Building networks of like-minded organizations and people offers them a way to weave together and create strong alliances that get better leverage, performance, and results than any single organization is able to do.
While the advantages of such networks are clear, there are few resources that offer easily understandable, field-tested information on how to form and manage social-impact networks. Drawn from the authors’ deep experience with more than thirty successful network projects, Connecting to Change the World provides the frameworks, practical advice, case studies, and expert knowledge needed to build better performing networks. Readers will gain greater confidence and ability to anticipate challenges and opportunities.
Easily understandable and full of actionable advice, Connecting to Change the World is an informative guide to creating collaborative solutions to tackle the most difficult challenges society faces.
"The hard truth is, every organization is facing complex social problems that they can't solve on their own. The good news is, every organization can build networks that will help them create solutions together. Connecting to Change the World is the must-read manual that will teach you how to put this strategy to work if you really want to make a difference."
Alan Webber, cofounder, Fast Company and author of "Life Reimagined" and "Rules of Thumb"
"The case for how networks can be uniquely leveraged to work in hyper-complex situations—offering a nimble and expansive approach—helps readers see how taking the leap into a network way of working can yield big impacts."
FAC Network
"We are living in a world where social change is about working networks, not about building organizations, especially if you need to work with Millennials. This book is a must read for anyone working in the nonprofit sector and wants to achieve more impact. The authors have done an amazing job overviewing the trends and offering valuable practical insights about how to build networks for social change—from design and connection to results."
Beth Kanter, coauthor, "The Networked Nonprofit" and "Measuring the Networked Nonprofit"
"Millennials' generational mission is to work together to change the world for the better. Connecting to Change the World is destined to become their guidebook for how to build the generative social networks they will use to accomplish their goal. Everyone interested in making global change happen at the local level will benefit from following the sage advice built on practical experience that permeates the pages of this book."
Morley Winograd, coauthor, "Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America"
"As government leaders steer more and row less, networks become an indispensable tool to solve complex problems and achieve critical public goals. This insightful book will tell you everything you need to know to create and use networks effectively. Beautifully written, with case studies woven throughout, it is as entertaining as it is useful. I wish I had read it 25 years ago!"
David Osborne, coauthor, "Reinventing Government" and "Banishing Bureaucracy"
"We all know that networks are key to the next generation of civic organizing, but what is the key to networks? Connecting to Change the World is chock full of advice and hard-won lessons from the frontiers of today’s net-centric innovations. This is required reading for social change makers to understand that there is an art, a science, and a discipline essential to design, develop, maintain, sustain and grow powerful networks."
Sterling Speirn, Managing Director, Poverty Interrupted and Former President & CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
"I funded networks for over ten years, and to see the wisdom of the field synthesized this concisely, and made this accessible, is extraordinary. The depth and breadth of the authors' practical knowledge is nothing short of captivating and brilliant."
Pat Brandes, Former Executive Director, Barr Foundation
"Though we know, deep in our bones, that we’re better together than alone, most of us don’t know how to activate or even initiate strong, effective networks. Plastrik, Taylor, and Cleveland have spent the better part of their careers studying and trying to remedy this problem, and to great effect."
William Shutkin, President and CEO, Presidio Graduate School
"Whether you’re a social entrepreneur, a nonprofit executive, a funder, or a grassroots activist, you’ll find strategies, tools, and cases that you can use to power your vision as well as your everyday work. Connecting to Change the World is essential reading for anyone who’s passionate about using networks to advance social change."
Kathy Reich, Director of Organizational Effectiveness Grantmaking, David and Lucile Packard Foundation
"...may well be the best guide for practitioner[s] to date...comprehensive...[Connecting to Change the World] is a significant contribution to the field of social change."
Engage!
"Connecting to Change the World provides social entrepreneurs with a powerful new tool for organizing change--the creation of generative networks that empower and unleash the complementary energies of large numbers of independent and interdependent actors. Incorporating lessons from dozens of networks in a host of fields, many of which they had a hand in improving, the authors advance the understanding and practice of an important emerging tool for social change, providing specific steps to success and important insights. I highly recommend this book to anyone serious about unleashing social change."
Bob Friedman, Founder and Chair, Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), board member, Family Independence
"Inspiring, practical advice for the most powerful pathway for social impact—the authors bring decades of deep experience in the most dynamic organizing model for creating change. This is a guidebook for 21st Century social transformation."
Graham Richard, CEO, Advanced Energy Economy
"Is there a 21st century blueprint for sustainable social change? If, like me, you've been working in the trenches to grow a new world only to be stumped by the very real barriers of weak tools—foolhardy business models, unimaginative value propositions, and the 20th century hangover of scale—then this is the book for you. Connecting to Change the World sheds light on why some organizations today feel like heavy bricks, whereas others defy gravity. Read on to discover how to situate yourself to grow social change that lives on longer than we do and goes to places we hadn't imagined."
Richard McCarthy, Executive Director for Slow Food USA
"The authors of Connecting to Change the World have rightly concluded that pooling talent and resources to address complex social and environmental problems is the only way to go. Their highly readable new book explains the art of creating collaborative solutions. Architecture 2030 is pleased to have worked with the authors when forming a national network of city-based 2030 Districts—local networks focused on carbon emissions, energy, and water reductions. We enthusiastically endorse their approach, and recommend their new book to individuals and groups committed to solving problems and ensuring a positive impact."
Ed Mazria, Founder and CEO, Architecture 2030
"An important contribution to the growing literature on networks, Connecting to Change the World offers startlingly useful guidance to those who need to navigate a changing new world increasingly represented by links and nodes. Free of the hyperbole and conjecture that sometimes accompany claims on the potential of networks, the authors rely on their research and experience to pinpoint the benefits and limitations of networks. As a person who works with policymakers and is actively engaged in philanthropy, this will become a well-worn reference book."
Anita R. Brown-Graham, Director, Institute for Emerging Issues, NC State University
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Generative Network Difference
Chapter 2. Start Me Up: Designing a Network
-Purpose
-Membership
-Value Propositions
-Coordination, Facilitation, and Communication
-Resources
-Governance
-Assessment
-Operating Principles
-Bonus Track—Advice to Funders and Other Network Engineers
Chapter 3. Connect the Dots: Weaving a Network's Core
Chapter 4. Network Evolution
Chapter 5. Enable and Adapt: Managing a Network's Development
-Member Engagement
-Network Infrastructure
-Provisional Planning
-Periphery Relationships
Chapter 6. Know Your Condition: Taking a Network's Pulse
Chapter 7. Back to Basics: Resetting a Network's Design
Chapter 8. Three Rules to Build By
Afterword
Resources for Network Builders
Appendices
Acknowledgments
Index
This guidebook for foundations dedicated to social change includes new frameworks and tools to help grantmakers engage with and support networks more strategically. Also included is a case study of the decision-making process surrounding the field of urban climate resilience.
Download the pdf here or read it below.
Reposted from the Connecting to Change the World blog with permission
In the early life of a network—the first year, say—how can you tell how well it’s doing? Right off the bat there’s observation: what does a network gathering look like, feel like, sound like? I’ve been in network annual meetings where newcomers to the network were astonished about how much energy and exchange network members put out—and the sheer amount of noise in the room. Even more astonishing, the members maintained a high level of energy for day after day. At the end, maybe they were exhausted—but during their time together they were passionately committed to giving and getting as much as they could.
Hidden in all that energy is a clue to what you’re really looking for if you want to gauge the network’s condition. It has to do with what makes a network tick, as we explain in chapter 1 of Connecting: two social dynamics—reciprocity and shared identity—emerge and are amplified by the network’s decentralized structure.
Reciprocity is a behavior, but it is driven by an emotion: a commitment to the success of others on their own terms. In a strong network, members don’t just know each other well, they are committed to each other’s success, and will take action on behalf of others. When you survey network members ask them how committed they feel they are to the success of other members and how committed they think other members are to their success.
Shared identity is also a feeling, a sense of common cause, mutual interest, alignment, and of belonging to something—literally, being a member. When you survey members ask them how much they feel they are a part of something larger than themselves, something communal.
In a network’s start-up phase, it takes time for members to develop a deep commitment to others in the network and a feeling of belonging and alignment in the network. But its emergence is what network builders should be watching for.
Reposted from the Connecting to Change the World blog with permission. We emphasized in Connecting that networks are dynamic and evolve, sometimes rapidly, in several dimensions. The structure of their members’ connections and their members’ value propositions may evolve. Their capabilities may evolve, from connecting people to aligning them to helping them collaborate on producing various outputs. Whether a network is evolving and how it is evolving is one way of understanding what the network’s condition and potential are. So when Maggie Ullman was asked to assess the condition of eight regional networks of city government sustainability directors around the U.S., we designed an assessment framework that would allow her to map each network’s evolution and also put the networks side by side to form a composite picture of their condition. This assessment, recently completed and based on interviews, observations, and written materials, is becoming the basis for customized support for the networks and new philanthropic funding to help them further evolve and generate greater impact. The assessment framework has two axes:
In each Stage the specifics of each Condition are different, they evolve. For instance:
When Maggie assembled a composite picture of the eight networks using the assessment matrix, it showed quite clearly that (a) mostly the networks were in the Developing Stage on nearly all of the conditions, except Activities and Communication, and that they were lagging in the Resources condition, “stuck” as it were in Emerging and Developing Stages. This mapping resulted in a set of recommendations that Maggie developed for the networks. Here’s the Network Evolution Assessment tool.
Photo by Jeremiah Roth (cc) Flickr.com
Cross-posted from the Connecting to Change the World blog with permission. We’re often asked about the design of network governance.
Reply in all cases: there isn’t one best governance model for a network; governance has to be customized to the network due to many factors we detail in chapter 2 of Connecting. There are many possible things that a network’s governance might have to decide and there are many different ways to make decisions But there’s more advice I add: Don’t jump to the assumption that “our network needs governance” just because there are decisions to be made. The purpose of governance is to enable network members. What is it you’re trying to enable that isn’t getting done in the network? Why isn’t it getting done? For many funders what’s not getting done is the development of a network plan and tight management of network resources. A certain governance structure might make the funder happier, but will it enable the network’s members to plan together and manage their resources better? If a network’s nodes aren’t interested enough in the network’s existence, will building a governance structure enable them to become more interested, or will it just feel like another thing that isn’t compelling to them? If a network’s members are supposed to align around a single strategic plan that coordinates them, a governance structure may well be able to make decisions and push implementation of the plan, but will it build the relationships among the many members that enable them to align deeply and sustainably? Design a network’s governance cautiously, focusing on what really needs to be governed, not on some feeling (perhaps a vestige from organization-centric thinking) that governance is needed.
