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Note: This is the latest draft of the Leadership and Networks Synthesis. Please note that the writing partners are currently working on updating this version so this is NOT the final publication. The final publication will be released by the Summer of 2011. If you have questions please contact Deborah Meehan (deborah at leadershiplearning.org)

[Note from Diana: open with a catchy story that profiles what leadership in networks means from an individual perspective -- possibly Annie Leonard and 'The Story of Stuff:' how the video spread like wildfire through social networks because it was developed in an open and collaborative way, and then realeased with liberal Creative Commons license, inviting others to remix and reuse. It wasn't about Annie and The Story of Stuff -- owning it and replicating it. It was about getting the message out there, so people could make it their own, and act on the recommendations.]

The Challenge of Leadership and Social Change
The complexity of social problems we face in the world today calls out for leadership on a scale and scope never before imagined. Global warming, poverty, and systemic violations of human rights require widespread coordination, collaboration, and alignment of effort to solve systems problems and to create global structures and cultures that insure the future of the planet and equitable access to basic human rights and dignity.

All over the world people and organizations are working for positive social change. According to WiserEarth there are more than “one million organizations and many millions of us around the world who are actively working toward ecological sustainability, economic justice, human rights protection, political accountability and peace -- issues that are systematically interconnected and intertwined.”

Despite this massive amount of effort, the fragmentation, duplication, and working at cross-purposes in the nonprofit sector and across sections, have meant that little progress has been made on solving “wicked” social problems. No individual organization or institution can solve these problems alone no matter how large they are. For the past couple decades, social entrepreneurs have been celebrated by trendsetters in the social change arena based on a model of heroic individuals who provide powerful examples of social impact that can be replicated across boundaries of all kinds. While social entrepreneurs, individual ingenuity, and breakthrough social innovations will continue to be core to making progress on complex problems, it's time for a shift away from a focus on individual power to collective power. We need to work together to find ways to direct our energy and resources towards a common purpose, to better connect and leverage our resources for greater collective impact, and to spread and adapt innovations quickly.

Imagine that we could reduce carbon emissions by 80% over the next 30-40 years. This is the scale of change we need and while there is early evidence that this is possible, it will require shedding deeply embedded assumptions about leadership, organizations, and leadership development that no longer serve us well. [Reframe this paragraph to be about consumption habits and reference back to the Story of Stuff here and the outsized impact its having]

	Dominant View	Networks View
Leadership:	privileges the few in positions of power within a hierarchy who have the power to control resources and exert influence over others. Consequently, we attribute achievements of groups within and across organizations to individuals who are often elevated to heroic proportions.	a process through which individuals and groups align themselves to take action on behalf of a large-scale social change purpose.
Leadership development:	focuses on developing the leadership and management skills of leaders in organizations so that they can more efficiently and effectively run their organizations.	places leadership in the network rather than in the hands of a single individual. Rich networks are "leaderful," with development programs oriented toward building network literacy and network competencies at all levels in the organization.
Organizations:	organizations are the most efficient and effective ways to produce social and community benefit. Organizations create forms of accountability that make investors feel safer about investing. The current crisis of nonprofit viability and sustainability challenges the wisdom of these assumptions. A disproportionate amount of resources have been invested in building the capacity of organizations at the expense of other forms of social organizing.	emphasizes the need for leaders to be stewards of their organizations and the multiple, complex, relationships within the organization and with its partners. The network view does not do away with an organizational core, but acknowledges the importance of the organization in an ecosystem that provides access to expertise, resources, and ideas that are outside of the traditional organizational boundary.

This report presents the exciting potential that networks and new social technologies offer for catalyzing social change on a scale we have never seen in the past. To fully embrace this potential, we need to face the limitations of old ways of doing things, recognize the demands of an increasingly complex environment and embrace new ways of organizing.

A Snapshot: How network strategies and tools are increasing the impact of our social change work

[Note from Diana about cases: I'd suggest identifying 2-4 cases that we want to profile in more detail . These could be in sidebars throughout the report or in a separate section. The stories could then be referenced in the main text -- in addition to anecdotal references to other examples throughout. I'd suggest picking cases that align with our intended audience -- social change leaders, leadership development providers, supporters of leadership development, other? Network weavers? The intent is to help our readers see how they might experiment with working/leading in new ways. ]

Work on global warming is providing a glimpse of what is possible. RE-AMP, a network of 125 funders and non-profits have focused their efforts on reducing global warming initiatives in 8 states by 80% (from 2005 levels) by 2050, and it’s working! A case study produced by the Monitor Institute describes the impact of this network.


In the past few years they have helped legislators pass energy efficiency policies in six states; promoted one of the most rigorous cap-and-trade programs in the nation; and halted the development of 28 new coal plants.

Here are some of the ways in which network strategies are increasing our collective ability to have a large impact on global social issues:

• Influence: The ‘Story of Stuff,’ a film developed to challenge an entrenched culture of consumption, was conceived, created and shared as a network held resource. After 3 years it is still getting 10,000 views a day, has had 12,000,000 online views, been translated into dozens of languages and has inspired curriculum and art events to promote discussion about consumption.
• Engage:
  • The 2008 Obama campaign mobilized 13,000,000 supporters and generated over $750,000 in small donations. The campaign demonstrated the power of using social tools and social networks to activate citizens to use online tools to raise money, organize house parties, and coordinate canvassing and phone banks.
  • Tyson Foods, in partnership with other organizations and leading bloggers like Chris Brogan, sponsored the Pledge to End Hunger. Free agents were encouraged to blog about the campaign and spread the word, resulting in nearly 5,000 pledges, and the donation of hundreds of pounds of food to local food banks.
• Innovate: The Minnesota Community Foundation partnered with Ashoka Changemakers on a social good contest that promoted innovative ideas for reducing childhood obesity. The network strategy used to solicit, judge and share ideas increased civic infrastructure by engaging organizational partners and their constituents throughout the contest process.
• Act:
  • KaBOOM!, an organization that aspires to create a “great place to play within walking distance of every child” shifted to a network strategy to help people build 1600 “do it yourself” playgrounds in one year…more in one year than they had built in the last 14 years since their inception![i]
  • In 1990, Women’s World Banking served 50,000 women with microfinance services. Ten years later it served 10 million by fostering a network of affiliates and associates that were themselves independent organizations.
  • MomsRising.org has engaged millions of moms to share stories and advocate for policy change on family leave, health care, toxins, education and much more.
  • 350.org organized 7000 events in 181 countries to build a global climate change movement to hold global leaders accountable to the latest climate science.

These are just a few examples of how people and organizations through networks are increasing their capacity to innovate, extend their reach and tackle large-scale problems.

What networks are and why they are important now

A network is a collection of people, organizations or other entities that are connected to each other by some kind of relationship. Networks have always existed because people are social and form relationships with each other.What is different now is that over the past ten years the science of networks has advanced our understanding of the dynamics of networks and how access to knowledge about the structure of a network can provide insights into improving the network's performance. [Put paragraphs from end as a sidebar here.]

At the same time, What is changing is the scale and reach of our networks. Social technologies (texting, Twitter, blogs, wikis,and social networking sites) are making it possible to connect people and organizations in unprecedented ways across immeasurable boundaries.

These tools make it possible to link with any number of people (irrespective of geographic distance), to access a greater diversity of perspectives, to accelerate the sharing of information, and to drastically reduce the costs of participation and coordination. That makes them well suited to facilitating progress on complex social and environmental challenges that require people and organizations to coordinate their efforts across traditional boundaries and sectors. (Working Wikily)

Kristen Rowe-Finkenbeiner remembers the days when you had to use the phone to call everybody about a political action and how much time that took. Now with the Internet, she recounts a story about how MomsRising.org found out on a Tuesday morning they had a meeting with a State Speaker of the House, sent out an email blast to invite people to come, and had over 200 people show up to the meeting that same afternoon. The staff time to turn out 200 people in the days before the Internet would have been unimaginable.

Other tools like network mapping are changing our ability to visualize the webs of relationships between people and organizations in ways that enable us to identify leverage points for helping a network produce better outcomes, to build a sense of connection and shared purpose across a network, and to assess changes in relationships and collaboration over time.

Case Study: Boston Green and Healthy Building Network

The Boston Green and Healthy Building Network illustrates the power of social network mapping in action. The Boston-based Barr Foundation had spent several years funding two sets of local organizations that advocated for changes in building codes and standards: public health organizations that saw unhealthy buildings as a root cause of many illnesses, and environmental groups that were focused on the energy efficiency and ecological impact of buildings. In 2005, a senior program officer at Barr recognized that while the “causes” of the two sets of organizations were different, the groups shared a common goal of setting higher performance standards for buildings, and they often approached the same government officials with similar requests. So Barr brought together the various parties in April 2005 to explore whether they could align their ef­forts, share information, and develop a more unified message for policymakers. Using information collected at the gathering, the foundation developed a real-time social network map of the people in the room. The map clearly showed two principal clusters of dots, one representing people in health organizations and the other primarily people in environmental organizations; it also showed that the groups were not well connected. Seeing the map of their fragmented network, the groups agreed to begin meeting together and eventually formed the Boston Green and Healthy Building Network. This network has increased connections and collaboration across the different groups and has improved access to, and relationships with, many key policy-makers in the city. [we need the reference here. the text is from Working Wikily - which was based on the case study by Beth Tener, Al Neirenberg and Bruce Hoppe]

We have all experienced some of these benefits in our work: increased access to experts and information; new ways of attracting resources; reaching new members/supporters; new ways of communicating with broader audiences. As Clay Shirky explains “Our electronic networks are enabling novel forms of collective action, enabling the creation of collaborative groups that are larger and more distributed than at any time in history. The scope of work that can be done by non-institutional groups is a profound challenge to the status quo.”[ii] The Obama campaign is an excellent example of how these tools are put to work. Using web-based tools and community organizing, supporters were able to connect, contribute, and collaborate much more easily, efficiently, and faster than ever before.

Changing our leadership mindset to unleash the power of networks

Beth Kanter and Allison Fine make a compelling case for the opportunity to strengthen today’s nonprofits with network strategies and tools in their book, The Networked Nonprofit. Their book posits a simple equation: social media powers social networks for social change. They caution that we often miss the operative word: social and explain that while tools are important , it’s not about embracing gadgetry, it about embracing social ways of being.[iii]

Many organizations are learning to “work wikily” with greater openness, transparency, decentralized decision-making and distributed action (Monitor Institute) better positioning them to adapt to dynamic and changing environments and respond to crises (Heifetz et. Al). Nevertheless, many organizations are finding it a challenge to adopt a network approach to leadership, and leadership programs are not supporting organizational leaders to develop those skill sets. It’s easy to default to old ways of doing things because our assumptions about individuals and organizations are deeply entrenched. Without a strong commitment to developing a network mindset, organizations [leaders? (patti)] will miss the opportunities to better align their efforts with others to influence social change. As organizations [leaders? (patti)] develop their capacity to use social technologies; and evolve and connect their resources through networks, they will enhance not only the value of their own work, but also increase the impact of the sector as a whole.

Networks coexist with traditional, hierarchical organizational forms. In a recent blog post, Patti Anklam explained,

We have always had, and will generally always need, two forms of networks in organizations: the formal and the informal. The formal organization is represented by the (usually) hierarchical organization structure. The links, or ties, in these structures are reporting relationships. They represent commitments and obligations that go in both directions. Formal structures are essential for processes and tasks that require discipline, measurement, and decision-making. This formal organization provides the illusion of control; however it is the informal organization, the organization between the lines and in the white spaces that supports the scaffolding of the hierarchy. Today’s organizational leaders need to be prepared to ask themselves, How do we become smarter about how to use these forms in appropriate ways? How can organizational leaders create more space for network forms of leadership? How can leadership programs support organizational leaders to develop network leadership competencies?

(I am sure we can find good graphics for this).

To support leadership in networks we need to move from our attachment to leadership as the behaviors of an individual and begin to understand leadership as a highly relational process by which individuals and groups align their purpose and action. The Leadership Learning Community describes leadership as a process through which individuals and groups align themselves to take action on behalf of a large-scale social change purpose. Effective leadership within a network requires an ability to understand how systems work, a commitment to equity, deep personal reflection, an ability to help hold a vision, action learning and much more.


Social technologies offer the opportunity to radically expand the ties and connections among people with much lower costs of coordination than before. The challenge is that utilizing these technologies to their fullest potential requires leading with a network mindset (e.g., exercising less direct control to increase collective influence). Leading with a network mindset remains unfamiliar and counter-intuitive to many. The graphic below by the Monitor Institute contrasts network leadership and organizational leadership. For instance, leadership in networks is relational and emergent; leadership in organizations is transactional and directive. Network leadership is most appropriate in situations that are complex and adaptive, organizational leadership works well for solving technical problems.

What core values demonstrate a network leadership mindset

A network leadership mindset is characterized by generosity, sharing control, trust, transparency, and reciprocity:
Generosity: A network mindset is all about sharing. The founder of KaBOOM!, Darell Hammond, acknowledges that they were not able to breakthrough on their mission of getting a playground within the reach of every child until they asked, “Why don’t we just give away the model? We can’t do everything anyway. If we give it away people can replicate it on their own." But Hammond’s approach is not a common thought process in the non-profit sector where good management often means protecting ideas as your competitive edge and niche to the point that organizational sustainability [sustainability is a funny word to use here becaus we so associate 'sustainability' with goodness. something else? survival? (patti)] becomes more important than mission impact.

Sharing leadership and control: For Darell Hammond and Annie Leonard, unleashing the power of networks meant letting go enough in order to share leadership, trusting that others would understand and embrace their vision. The people who grew 350.org into a global network did so by deputizing people all over the world to act in the name of 350.org if they were committed to significantly reducing carbon emissions. To solve a problem like climate change, many, many people and organizations need to learn to take coordinated yet decentralized action.

Trust:

Transparency: In a traditional organizational context, information and planning are often concentrated in the hands of a few, the upper tier of management who are presumed to possess the skills and knowledge needed to ensure organizational success. When a broader group is engaged in taking actions in support of an organization’s mission, there is the potential for more wisdom and creativity, and better outcomes. Openness and transparency about vision, plans, resources, and decision-making are essential for creating the conditions for network growth and influence. When transparency is openly practiced, trust grows. Openly sharing information and seeking input from others begins to transform the culture of scarcity and competition that has fragmented the social change ecosystem. As organizations become more transparent, accessible and understandable to people on the outside, the walls between inside and outside become more porous. Ideas and resources flow more freely, engagement increases, and creativity is sparked. [Cut down the theory in this section and add an example]

Reciprocity: [An example from LCW?]

What are network leadership competencies

The wheel of Network Leadership Competencies identifies five key competencies needed to effectively lead within a network or to bring network thinking and skills to increase the impact of leadership in nonprofit organizations. All of the competencies presume a network mindset and network literacy. Network literacy implies familiarity with the concepts of networks and their dynamics; the network mindset follows from an understanding that because individuals and organizations are embedded in networks, access to improvements in impact, performance and results occurs as a result of applying network competencies.

[Update graphic with edited competencies list]





Connecting (weaving): Relationships are the foundation of networks. Lawrence CommunityWorks (LCW) is a nonprofit community development corporation working to transform and revitalize the physical, economic, and social landscape of Lawrence, Massachusetts. LCW’s goal is to create a new “environment of connectivity” where residents can more easily connect to information, opportunity and each other. Their belief is that if thousands of residents are induced to “get back in the game” of working together and taking leadership roles in Lawrence, they can truly revitalize the City. [iv](LCW website) Networks depend on trust and reciprocity. Accountability and responsibility are not enforced through rules, rather people become accountable to one another and the larger network by building authentic connections. A key role of leading in a network is weaving those connections to create greater value. Since networks are fundamentally social, many network leaders are quick to point out, they should be rewarding and fun!

Organizing: Network Strategies and Tools: To take advantage of easier ways to organize and coordinate social change action, leadership will need to become adept at using social media to engage, support and coordinate large-scale social change efforts. In a traditional organizational model, leaders manage participation through action plans with prescribed roles; in networks, leadership is more distributed and often self-authorizing as people and groups take on different roles, and align their actions to move the system in a desired direction. Network members understand that small and large contributions aggregate to produce a larger collective impact. MomsRising describes the layer cake as a metaphor for providing multiple levels of participation and entry points. Bill Traynor of LCW descibes how critical it is to effective community organizing that networks create multiple entry points for people to find ways to do what they can and feel valued as contributors.

Network Bridging: The problems of fragmentation in the nonprofit sector are widely recognized as are the limitations of trying to solve interconnected problems by focusing on one issue. Still, it is hard to break out of our silos and dedicate the time and resources to reach out to others. As a society we are divided along many lines of race, class, gender and other isms and yet adhere to an ideology of individualism that does not acknowledge context and holds to the ideas that only individuals with powerful visions can bootstrap change. Leadership will need a whole systems outlook; the ability to see interconnections; and the patience, commitment and collaborative skills to build bridges across organizations and societal divides. This means paying attention to the process of network weaving, e.g., introducing people, facilitating conversations, reaching out to new people and making people with different points of view feel included. As in the case of Boston Green and the Healthy Building Network, it is important not only to connect people but to understand who needs to be connected within the network and at its margin (periphery) to insure the diversity of experience and perspectives that will support creativity, innovation, reach and impact.

Experimentation and Learning: Leadership in networks learns through constant experimentation and failure. For instance, a group of students experimented with different ways to engage people in climate change before coming up with 350.org. MomsRising celebrates mistakes with "joyful funerals" to enable people to move quickly to let go of things that did not work. Leadership that embraces risk taking, openness and commits to continuous learning and integration is more likely to produce social benefit and transform the status quo. Many funding models for organizations require short-term results for continuous support: this practice often undermines the bold experimentation which depends on learning from failure. Action learning is a hallmark of a vibrant network where plans emerge and action is adapted in response to experimentation with many ideas.

Self-awareness. In addition to a dedication to action learning, leaders in networks need to be committed to learning about themselves. Bill Traynor of Lawrence Community Works shares his reflections about the personal learning and reflection one must do to be effective in a network.

The leader has to genuinely participate in the environment in order to deploy herself appropriately. The challenges of this way of being are profound, and those challenges start with a fundamental reflection about who you are as a person and how you move through the world: how you exhibit fear, react to change, deal with letting go of power and ego. How you listen and observe and the keenness of your instincts for both conceptualizing and synthesizing. How you hold onto or let go let go of strongly held convictions about what is right and what will work. All of these things are of course rooted in the essence of who we are as people.”[v]

Systems Thinking: Efforts to take on societal problems like climate change, poverty or class and racial disparities, require a deep understanding of how systems work and perpetuate themselves. It is not possible to understand class, culture and power and how to work on behalf of social justice without paying attention to how opportunity structures that play out along racial and class lines are reinforced by systems. Looking at interactions among multiple factors that influence system performance is critical for identifying leverage points for change. In the RE-AMP project the first course of action for the organizations and funders was to begin by understanding the system they wanted to change. They mapped the system to identify 4 key levers necessary to change the system: stop the building of coal plants, retire existing coal plants, replace coal generated electricity with renewable power and reduce electric consumption through efficiency. This multi-leverage point strategy requires an ability to see the big picture and understand how your actions align with others to produce systems change.


Supporting leadership in networks

Over the past several decades, a field of organizational development has matured to support and strengthen organizations that now have acess to a diverse set of strategies: customized technical assistance from consultants who can address a host of good management practices; non profit support organizations that offer a wide variety of classes, training curriculum and materials; a robust resource of online and hard copy books, manuals, and how to guides; leadership programs focused on cultivating strong organization; and capacity building grants to support organizations in the adoption of stronger management practices. Comparatively speaking the field of network development is quite nascent. To prepare individuals, organizations and groups to take advantage of network strategies we will need a proliferation of resources to support a dramatic paradigm shift and adoption of new practices. Much can be learned from the experience of organizational development about the need for network consultants, customized technical assistance, training programs, curriculum, books and workshop materials, etc. Learning a new mindset will also require new ways of learning and developing these skills that could include communities of practice, experiential learning environments supported by leadership programs, open space conferences and the use of collaborative learning technologies like world cafe.

10 things you can do to catalyze and unleash leadership in networks:

Make a commitment to large scale change: To take advantage of the opportunities to coordinate the efforts of vastly more people it’s necessary to understand that more is possible and set higher sights and expectations, described in the RE-AMP project as “the big hairy audacious goal of an 80% reduction in electrical pollution." Many leadership programs are designed to strengthen individual skills that will improve organizational performance. The hope is this will result in specific or general community changes that are often not identified or monitored. We need a revolution in our beliefs and behaviors. If we believe we can and must do more (e.g., make sure that every person in this country has access to good health care, quality education and a safe place to live), then we need leadership strategies to help us better leverage the power of networks.

Clarify network purpose and choose appropriate leadership strategies: Networks provide peer exchange and support, enable people to get things done more efficiently, influence policy decisions and practices, and catalyze social movements. These different purposes require different network strategies for success. Some networks form organically and emerge, while others are intentionally created or catalyzed. Being intentional from the beginning about which strategies are most appropriate will increase the success of your program’s network. For instance, the purpose of the Barr Fellowship Network is to connect nonprofit leaders in Greater Boston to deepen their relationships and commitment to the community without presupposing what the desired outcomes will be n advance. Other networks, like the one created by the Leadership in Action program focuses collective attention on achieving a specific goal.


Develop a network mindset through individual and collective reflection: A leadership program or training can incorporate network literacy and the introduction of a network mindset into their curriculum. When individuals and groups have an opportunity to reflect on their current ways of behaving, and practice network ways of working, they will be better positioned to apply network tools and strategies in complex situations, and understand when it is more appropriate to use organizational tools and strategies to manage technical challenges.

Cultivate systems analysis skills: Incorporate systems understandings of culture and power. Those who are providing leadership in networks or bringing network strategies to their work in organizations will not contribute effectively to reducing global inequalities without understanding the structures and systems that perpetuate these inequities, and how to intervene in a system to change the outcomes it produces. Systems thinking and analysis does not come easily to people who have are invested in one issue or one problem, but it can be learned. The Sustainability Institute and LEAD International in the environmental field have led the way in developing tools, games and curriculum to learn to lead with a systems understanding of how things work and how to disrupt or intervene in systems to change them. Systems thinking curriculum can be incorporated into current leadership programs or offered as training components as part of organizational and network capacity building efforts.

Use maps to analyze how networks work.In addition to understanding why networks are important, leadership and training programs can help participants to understand what a network is, what makes a network healthy, and how leadership can support network growth, purpose and impact with network skills like weaving and bridging. We now have the tools to see network or systems using social network analysis. This is important since we are accustomed to seeing organizational charts while networks are invisible. These tools have helped people learn to work in networks more effectively as they see and understand the importance of formal and informal structures, weak and strong ties and the importance of affinity and diversity as demonstrated in the story of the Boston Green and Healthy Building Network. With a map you can explore questions like these:

• Where are groups in a network that care about or work on similar issues?
• Who are the people that bridge across different groups in a network (e.g., network weavers, or bridgers)?

• How well does the network facilitate the flow of ideas, resources, and energy for making a difference together on some issue of shared concern?


• How does the network successfully extend its reach and influence?

[the level of detail here seems out of proportion to the other areas]

Practice with new social media tools: The range of social media tools and how to use them can be daunting to people and groups when they venture into this new terrain. Social media use in the nonprofit sector is very uneven, often based on generational differences. It is important to introduce basic tools: social networking sites, wikis, Twitter, blogging, Flickr, etc. and provide technical support and a safe space to practice and discuss the ways in which new technologies can help achieve shared purpose. There is usually a learning curve but the payoff can be big. Using the right social media tools in the right way can mean accomplishing more in less time and often with fewer resources. The leadership in RE-AMP and KaBOOM! had to commit themselves to learning and becoming comfortable with social media tools to advance their work.

Leverage existing leadership programs: Leadership programs are an important venue for people and groups interested in leadership to better understand networks and how to use them. Becoming adept at applying network strategies and using tools requires a commitment of time to learning. While there are a lot of great resources available and listed in the directory [what directory?] to support people with independent initiative to learn, many prefer and benefit from more structured opportunities to learn with others through training programs, seminars, workshops, and leadership programs. Existing leadership programs offer an opportunity to reach tens of thousands of people to develop a network mindset.
Integrate action learning: In a supportive community, a group can experiment and learn more quickly together and strengthen their networks by using action learning methodologies. Leadership programs that use action learning deepen participation, and connect participants in a community of practice that builds relationships among people where they often did not exist before.

Strengthen alumni connections and connect their networks: Many leadership programs are now realizing that their alumni are untapped networks. Without a network mindset and strategy for unleashing the power of these networks, alumni network effects may be limited to small clusters of graduates organized around their class identity, geography or issue interests. With a network mindset, alumni have the opportunity to reach out beyond their cohort to weave connections between and among their networks.

Assess network effects to strengthen network impact : New tools and methodologies are being developed to better assess network effects and understand collective impact (FSG). Network evaluation tools are relatively new. We need to document and share our evaluation strategies and experiences to better understand what is working. Before and after social network maps can provide a picture of how relationships in a network have changed as a result of a leadership program.

10 things you can do if you fund leadership and network development

Connect with other funders who understand the importance of a network mindset: The ability to understand, support, participate in, lead and weave networks will be a critical capacity for social change in this century, and growing numbers of funders recognize this. Philanthropic support for networks and network leadership is not yet a mainstream best practice. It’s still a ‘next practice.’The Monitor Institute is currently facilitating a community of practice for funders who are intentionally supporting and working through networks, The ‘Network of Network Funders’ has 20 grantmakers in the core group, 40 more who participate in their online workspace, and countless others who want to experiment in this space. [this begs the question of how to join this?]

Fund network mapping: Network mapping is a powerful tool for identifying hubs and clusters in networks that affect how information and ideas are likely to flow, and how engaged the periphery of the network might be. Some network patterns support innovation, diffusion, and mobilization more than others. Investing in network mapping helps reveal where there are gaps in a network that can interfere with progress. Maps can be used to increase network interconnectedness, such as happened for both RE-AMP or the Boston Green and Healthy Building Network.

Develop a creative approach for funding network weaving: There are costs involved in network weaving that often cannot be absorbed by any one organization in the network. Foundations can play a role in bringing important resources to this work. The Barr Foundation and Hunt Alternative Fund have invested in network weaving through fellowship programs. Both programs have demonstrated a high return on network investments. Some promising strategies for supporting network weaving include:

• Identifying one or multiple people who are dedicated to making and strengthening connections throughout the network.
• Hosting in-person gatherings that strengthen connections through attention to quality facilitation, food, and the gathering space.
  
• Creating an online infrastructure, and supporting network technology stewards (people who facilitate use of technology to share information, coordinate or learn together).

Provide network capacity building and technical assistance: Like organizations, networks need care and nurturing to reach their full potential. Capacity building strategies and technical assistance will help networks develop their network strategy, assess their communication and engagement strategies, increase their effectiveness at using social media and other network tools, and make the case for funding network strategies.

Invest in tools for measuring and strengthening networks: A growing number of tools are being created to support network effectiveness and development, such as the Monitor Institute’s “Network Effectiveness Diagnostic and Development Assessment” and nuPolis' “Network Health Scorecard." These tools provide networks with frameworks for collectively assessing their health and effectiveness. [Not clear: are you asking funders to invest in developing tools? Or in taking the time to use tools that are already available, and many of them free? (patti)]

Support learning about how to strengthen network leadership: As leadership programs, capacity builders and technical assistance providers focus more attention on how to develop leadership competencies within networks and a network mindset among organizational leadership, we need to ask and answer questions across a variety of experiences that will accelerate learning about the impact of networks and how to strengthen them:

• What are effective strategies for cultivating leadership with a network mindset and the ability to use network strategies and tools to increase their impact?
• What impact are strong bridging and weaving leaders having on network results?
• What impacts do networks have on social and environmental justice issues, like changing health status in a low-income community, improving air quality, ensuring economic and family success?

This type of learning can be supported by investing in cross program evaluations, communities of practice, and convenings to capture what have been referred to as "next practices," those practices with evidence of success that point to where the field needs to move to maximize the impact of leadership investments and strategies.

Fund network impact evaluations: Evaluating the impact and effects of networks requires approaches to evaluation that move beyond the self-report of individuals to begin monitoring changes at the population level, assess levels of civic engagement, and use data more effectively to influence policy decisions in fields like health reform. It is important to develop and use methodologies that enable data to be used to better track these types of changes, incorporate the use of new tools like social network mapping that reveal changes in relationships among participants, and find and tell stories about the impact of collaborative work.

Invest in the development and diffusion of network leadership training materials, curriculum and tools: [need some text here. what should funders do? ] For instance, June Holley, a leading practitioner of network weaving, has developed a Network Weaving Handbook with hundreds of exercises to strengthen the capacity of network weavers. The extraordinary number of existing delivery organizations, such as leadership programs and management support organizations, could easily reach thousands of nonprofit leaders if they had access to training curriculum and tools to integrate into their current leadership offerings.

Invest in strengthening network leadership capacity: Investments in overall network health and development are often an investment in network leadership. There have been few targeted efforts to invest in the development of network leaders or weavers to date, but some exciting prospects are unfolding. The Packard Foundation has invested in a Network Weaving Community of Practice for network weavers facilitated by June Holley, John Smith, and Nancy White (well-recognized network weavers and network technology stewards).


Conclusion:

The health of the planet for future generations is at risk and the increasing wealth gap has created a country in which many people cannot find jobs, attend good schools, live in safe neighborhoods, own homes or afford health care. We have entered into a new social environment where everyone who cares about these issues has an opportunity to work in new ways and can engage and activate many more supporters for their cause. As Clay Shirky points out, “There are thousands of experiments in new social forms going on every day, as people who want to gather together, try capabilities that have only recently become ubiquitous…Our social tools are dramatically improving our ability to share, cooperate and act together. As everyone from working biologist to angry air passengers adopts those tools, it is leading to epochal change.” Leadership of social change efforts can sit on the sidelines wondering if networks are a fad or embrace this opportunity and develop a new network mindset. As this publication points out, this is not easy. It will require us to question what we think we know about leadership and organizing. It will require us to step into unfamiliar territory and experiment with new ways of thinking and new tools. We offer ideas, resources, and tools for helping leadership to scale their social change by taking advantage of network thinking and strategies. This work is still emerging and we invite you to help by sharing resources, experiences and your own learning.


What we mean by “network” and common network terms: [Should this be placed more towards the top?] [I think a sidebar located as I have indicated above.]
[I also think that it's not necessary to have to quote people for the definitions here. These are all very common definitions. I can rewrite if you want to have this be less reliant on the quotes you've selected. Let me know. (Patti)]

According to June Holley in the Network Weaver Handbook, “networks are sets of relationships and the patterns they create.” She goes on to note that “these patterns influence the quality of communication and the likelihood of collaboration.” We are learning more and more about how networks support communication, collaboration, collective action, and innovation, and how to intervene in a network to strengthen it. Networks have two basic elements, nodes (people and organizations) and the connections between them, ties (Fine and Kantor).
Hubs in networks have one or two people with most of the connections. Hubs are important because they have the capacity to weave the network by connecting people they know. The process of network weaving transforms the network from a hub and spoke pattern to a more web-like pattern with a core and a periphery.

The network core represents the strong bonds among a group of people who have a shared purpose or vision. They are the most engaged members of the network. A strong core means that people can come and go and the network remains strongly connected. A network with a vibrant periphery is more likely to form connections with people in other networks. The periphery of the network offers opportunities for growth and expansion (Fine and Kantor) Networks have strong ties at the core, and weaker ties at the periphery. Social media gives us new tools for nurturing the weaker ties among those at the periphery of our networks.

The use of mapping tools to visualize networks enables us to assess the network’s overall health. Strong networks have clusters formed around affinity (shared goals, identity) that are linked to a diversity of other clusters. The grouping by affinity creates strong bonds and trust while the diversity supports new ideas, resources and innovation. Unlike traditional organizational structures where information flows down through multiple layers of management, a network is characterized by many indirect connections and shorter communication paths. While particular individuals or organizations may have some prominence in a robust network and help strengthen groups or catalyze relationships between groups, it is the connections that are powerful not the individuals who formed those connections.