5-17+Intro+Funders+Guide

=The "Ask"=
 * //We'd love your thoughts / reflections on the preliminary outline of the guide, specifically://**
 * 1) General reactions: what works? what didn't?
 * 2) What’s missing?
 * 3) What's not needed / what can we drop?
 * 4) What additional examples / experiences from your work or others might we include to illustrate ideas?

** INTRODUCTION **

__**//Why do funders need to understand networks now?//**__
Throughout history, social change has been possible only through the contributions and dedication of //many// people and organizations connected together in tight and loose groups. Developments as wide ranging as Indian Independence, civil rights, women’s suffrage, and freedom of speech couldn’t have happened with solitary or isolated leaders. Citizens and groups of all kinds were linking ideas and actions through constantly changing constellations of relationships. These activists and entrepreneurs were tackling complex problems that no one actor could make progress on alone regardless of their size and influence.

Today the complexity and scale of tough social and environmental problems is only growing—from climate change to failing education systems to childhood malnutrition. Yet our ability to manage the complexity and reverse these problems is not keeping pace with their growth.

Leaders are stuck at the crossroads of increasing fragmentation //and// interdependence. On the one hand, we’re living in a world where perspectives, practices and action are increasingly fragmented as people and organizations become more specialized in their interests and siloed in their actions. Yet, at the same time, we’re living in a world that is becoming more and more interdependent as ideas, money, things and people move across boundaries of all kinds. It’s hard to know where to start. Do you go deep and identify a focused concern where you can quickly gain traction? Do you go broad and embrace a broad reaching issue that will require many years and many actors to tackle? Regardless of where you put your stake, funders will need to make connections and build bridges across once fragmented people and perspectives. They will also need to operate with an awareness of the interdependence in which we now live by working to understand the complexity and by acting in concert with others. They will need to participate in and catalyze networks for good.

Here’s the good news: in recent years, network potential has been exploding with the advent and adoption of digital tools that are massively growing our ability to share information, connect and coordinate. Plus, our understanding of systems and how we’re connected is advancing alongside advances in tools for visualizing complex webs of relationships. We can now make the relationships that we’re embedded in inside, outside and between our organizational lives visible and channel that knowledge toward positive social returns.

[discussion of the dark side of networks here]

[JG: Darker side vs. "risks" section in next- risks being redundant.]

[JG: Feels like there's a "WHAT ARE NETWORKS" discussion missing at the beginning of the introduction. It appears in, "What does it mean to catalyze networks for good". Consider moving PART of that sidebar up earlier in the text.]

__**// What will it take to understand and catalyze networks? //**__
Today’s networks for good bring together well-established know-how from sources like grassroots community organizing with insights and tools for connecting and coordinating large groups, as seen more recently in the open-source software movement. They’re combining community organizing’s relational abilities and courage to confront power with the creativity, transparency and rapid iteration of open innovation alongside nuanced knowledge of group dynamics and social psychology.

[JG: Just a thought---consider a diagram of the different methods, like the one that exists on Wikipedia on complex systems... it may help make concrete a very abstract discussion]

Since catalyzing networks for good draws on many different disciplines and experiences, and there’s not yet a codified practice or broadly shared lexicon, it’s tough to talk about. Discussion of network impact can, on the one hand, come across as abstract and theoretical, and on the other hand, it can be dismissed as “that touchy feely thing.”

It’s similar to the movement in philanthropy to support nonprofit organizational effectiveness, which gained momentum in the 1990s. There was no widely used language for talking about organizational effectiveness in the nonprofit context, let alone people and resources for building that capacity. The default was to apply the dominant frame: market-based organizational effectiveness and strategy. Of course, that was problematic for a range of reasons – e.g. third party payers, non-market incentives, etc. Overtime, a new frame of social change strategy and nonprofit organizational development was adopted to much greater effect.

It’s our natural tendency as humans to project what we already know onto what we’re trying to understand. When we talk about “networks” in a social change and capacity building context, we typically apply today’s dominant frame: organizations. [i] As Roberto Cremonini, who pioneered network grantmaking at the Barr Foundation said, it’s reminiscent of the early images of flying machines at the turn of century. They all looked like ships held aloft by balloons. [fn - Eugene Kim]



Although people have been doing work, learning together, spreading ideas and influence, and coordinating large-scale action through networks for centuries, if not millennia, our default is to understand networks through an organizational lens. It’s time to create an alternate “dominant frame”—one which reflects network dynamics and allows us to see novel possibilities that break away from our prior experience and mental models, like airplanes with propellers and wings must have seemed to people at the turn of the twentieth century.

For funders, this doesn’t necessarily mean dramatic change to grantmaking operations. Sure, there will be opportunity to try out new and transformative things, liking creating flying machines. But it’s mostly about applying a new frame and set of assumptions that embraces the complexity of networks and the systems in which they’re embedded to how grants are structured, impact is assessed and leadership is exercised.
 * **Dominant Model** || **Model for Understanding Network Complexity** ||
 * Linearity / cause and effect || Non-linearity / complex web of inter-relationships ||
 * Static and ordered || Dynamic and chaotic ||
 * Seeking harmony || Embracing difference ||
 * Predictable outcomes. Can be controlled || Expected and unexpected outcomes. Can be cultivated ||
 * Planned || Emergent ||
 * Stable participation & leadership || Fluid participation and leadership ||
 * Seeking answers || Seeking patterns / learning ||
 * Generalizable /replicable insight || Context specific insight ||
 * Goal = growth || Goal = positive adaptation ||

__**// Sidebar: What’s does it mean to catalyze networks for good? //**__
Networks are simply people connected by relationships. They’re naturally occurring and all around us, like air. They’re inside, outside and between our organizations. By understanding the nature of relationships, there’s opportunity to influence the network and how participants act on their own and collectively.

[JG: This is a helpful definition. Consider bringing up earlier in the text.]

These network connections can be harnessed for significant social impact—for spreading ideas, for mobilizing engagement, for coordinating action. They can be “networks for good.” This guide was written so funders can capture and channel this potential toward solving the tough social and environmental problems of our time.

So, what’s the “secret sauce” for the power of networks?

Beth Kanter asked this question several activists leading and weaving networks. One of them, Deborah Meehan, ED of the Leadership Learning Community, turned to her network and asked the question. Then we turned to the NNF to ask the question, and asked them to spread the query to their networks.

Here’s aggregate “secret sauce” according to the seventy plus responses we received:



__**//Additional Resources for Understanding Networks//**__
This report looks at what's working today for citizen-centered networks, paints three sketches of what the world might look like for connected citizens as soon as 2015, and offers pragmatic near-term recommendations for grantmakers. Diana Scearce, //Monitor Institute//, Spring 2011. ONLINE**:** [|www.connectedcitizens.net]
 * Connected Citizens: The Power, Peril, and Potential of Networks**

A handbook covering the basics on networks –including their common attributes, how to leverage networks for social impact, evaluating networks, and social network analysis. Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor, 2006. ONLINE: []
 * Net Gains: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change**

An introduction to the basics on networks, how they evolve, and how they can be shaped for social impact—illustrated through a case study. Valdis Krebs and June Holley, 2006. ONLINE: []
 * Building Smart Communities through Network Weaving**

Go back to 5-17 Draft Funders Guide TOC.