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The following people and organizations are doing work that is informing a point of view about leadership and networks. We invite you to add people and organizations that have expanded your thinking and practice about leadership and networks and to give a brief description of their contributions. For those who are already mentioned here, feel free to add additional resources or make changes to the descriptions.

• Bruce Hoppe and Connective Associates. Connective Associates partnered with LLC on a Social Network Analysis Project in 2007 that applied network mapping to three different types of leadership networks. The study concluded that networks that have a clear purpose, are more bounded and formalized, and have outside funding, may benefit most from using network maps as a capacity-building tool. Read more here. In a second project with the Berkana Institute in 2009, network mapping was applied in the context of a transnational learning network. With networks that focus on identity, belonging, and nurturing deep friendships, social network analysis tools may not align well with the group culture. Reflections on the outcomes of this project are here. Claire Reinelt, LLC's Research and Evaluation Director and Bruce Hoppe co-wrote a paper Using Social Network Analysis to Evaluate Leadership Networks (forthcoming in a special issue of Leadership Quarterly in 2010). This paper offers a framework for conceptualizing different types of leadership networks and uses case examples to identify outcomes typically associated with each type of network. One challenge for the field of leadership development has been how to evaluate leadership networks. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a promising evaluation approach that uses mathematics and visualization to represent the structure of relationships between people, organizations, goals, interests, and other entities within a larger system. Core social network concepts are introduced and explained to illuminate the value of SNA as an evaluation and capacity-building tool. Bruce and Claire created a Leadership Networks website. We especially draw your attention to the bibliography and the case studies, and invite you to contribute your own resources and stories on leadership and networks. Bruce also recently collaborated with SeeChange on a network evaluation of the Hewlett Foundation's New Constituencies for the Environment: nonprofit organizations that are advocating for cleaner air on behalf of communities of color, the initiative targets efforts to address state policies that can deliver large-scale improvements.
  

• Madeline Taylor and Peter Plastrik partnered with the Barr Foundation to publish Network Power for Philanthropy and Nonprofits. The Barr Foundation convened a group of experts and facilitated a study on thegrowing use of network strategies by nonprofit organizations, social entrepreneurs, and foundations. This report includes their key findings. Madeline, Peter and the Barr Foundation also collaborated on Net Gains- A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change. The Handbook starts with the point of view that networks provide social-change agents with a fundamentally distinct and remarkably promising “organizing principle” to use to achieve ambitious goals. The handbook provides practical advice based on the experiences of network builders, case studies of networks small and large, local and international, and emerging scientific knowledge about “connectivity.” They also collaborated with Bill Traynor on a case study of Lawrence CommunityWorks.

• Bill Traynor and Lawrence Community Works. Bill recently published an article in Nonprofit Quarterly entitled Vertigo and the Intentional Inhabitant: Leadership in a Connected World. Bill also wrote an article on Building Community in Place with valuable advice about how to build community in a network environment.
  Bill was a keynote catalyst at Creating Space IX and spoke on the ethic of reciprocity in community networks. Here's a youtube conversation between Frankie Blackburn (Impact SilverSpring), Bill Traynor and Judith Rosenberg (TEAMS).

• Janice Epstein, Beth Beard and Impact Brokers. LLC awareded Impact Broker’s Boston Member Circle a Community Seed grant to support an online learning lab to explore the themes of social capital and networks within the framework of adaptive and collective leadership. Janice Epstein wrote a series of blog posts published on the LLC site that focused on leadership in a network environment. The blogs draw on learning and experiences of Impact Brokers, a cooperative of nonprofits, investors, consultants and community partners that is coming together to improve collective capacity to tackle complex social challenges. In many ways IB represents a “network of networks.”

• Interaction Institute for Social Change. Created Network Building for Social Change-- a resource list on network mapping tools, networks in action, network technology, network blogs, and readings. They are developing a network-building approach that creates the conditions for the kind of innovation and experimentation needed to tackle society’s most intractable problems and reflect a new approach to movement building.

• Diana Scearce and the Monitor Institute. They published a recent paper entitled Working Wikily 2.0: Social Change with a Network Mindset. The paper examines how networks and working with a network mindset—embracing principles like openness, transparency, decentralized decision-making, and distributed action—can help funders and activists increase their impact. Monitor and the Packard Foundation partnered on a two year inquiry on Philanthropy and Networks Exploration (PNE) into how foundations can tap and support the power of
  networks.
  

• The Social Network Team at Annie E. Casey Foundation (Audrey D. Jordan, Annie E. Casey Foundation;
  Mary Achatz, Westat; Nilofer Ahsan, Center for the Study of Social Policy; Bahia Akerele, Annie E. Casey Foundation; Terri Bailey, The Piton Foundation; and Bill Traynor, Lawrence Community Works). They have overseen the publication series of five reports that looks at the definitions, research, power, practices, and insights relating the impact of social networks on family strengthening and community change as part of their Making Connections Initiative. Audrey Jordan who leads the Social Network Team at AECF published A Reflection on Why Social Networks Are Critical to Sustainable Change

• Patti Anklam is author of Net Work: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World. She also writes a blog Networks, Complexity and Relatedness.
  
  
• June Holley has been helping communities around the globe form Smart Networks by training and supporting Network Weavers.

• Valdis Krebs is a leading researcher on applying social network analysis (SNA) and organizational network analysis (ONA). A series of case studies is available on the orgnet.com site.