I was recently advising friends starting a new charitable organisation whose aim is to promote public engagement - so naturally enough they wanted their structures to be participative too. (Well, not naturally enough since there are plenty of nonprofits who preach one thing but seem to practice another. Not this time, fortunately).
The challenge in general is that charities need boards of trustees to govern, paid staff to do things, as well as volunteers on projects and probably advisers and supporters with rather undefined roles. There may be consultants doing a mix of pro bono and paid for, and members. There will certainly be funders.
If the staff aren't careful, they can spend most of their time involving all of these helpful people but not delivering to those for whom the charity was - or should have been set up - the beneficiaries, also known as customers in other circumstances.
In worst cases the Board micromanage the staff, the advisory group try and tell the Board and staff what they should be doing, the volunteers are baffled, members drop away and everyone feels both overworked and frustrated.
I have to say that my inclination is to have a board of trustees of not more than six to eight really good people, avoid advisory boards, get advisors, consultants and volunteers focussed on projects, and be clear about whether members are the same as beneficiaries - if you have members. Then be really entrepreneurial in mixing fundraising with projects and services that earn you money. You may need an associated trading company.
My friends agreed with much of this - and also wanted to be a really networky organisation, working online, developing communities of interest and much else favoured these days in the fields of organisational development, knowledge management and social software... or at least that which is blogged about.
I've been pushing that approach hard, so when they asked what that would mean for the organisation I drew the diagram you can see here. I got a bit carried away in Omnigraffle, but hope it makes some sense, at least as a conversation starter.
I suggested that they think of anyone potentially involved as being part of their network - beneficiaries, funders, advisers and so on, with the Board and staff in the middle of the cloud. Then concentrate on developing the relationships and activities that deliver to beneficiaries.
As much activity as possible should be organised around jobs to be done, projects to be developed, services to be delivered - with Board, staff, advisers etc working in mix and match teams. The Board would, of course, set the overall direction of the organisation and fulfill their legal responsibilities as trustees.
It would be essential to set up communication systems so that people could get information, communicate, collaborate, publish and manage as needed.
Projects and services would be developed on a spectrum from free (email newsletter, sponsored events) to paid for (high-value information, expert advice, high-level communication access). These projects would be developed with network members, where appropriate, rather than always run for the greater glory of the central team (another cause of dissent in my experience). The emphasis would be on creativity and fun while getting things done, and keeping both funders and beneficiaries happy.
My diagram was used at the first Board meeting, and I was a little apprehensive because a few of the trustees had actually written books on this stuff. However, sometime a picture is worth 200 pages, and it went down well enough.
The real challenge now is how to do it. My follow-up advice was to start in the centre with an away day for Board and staff so they get to know each other. Some work on personalities types and communication styles could help with understanding about runnings meetings online and off. Improv work or games could add some fun. I can think of just the people to do it ... maybe even free if that opened up possibilities in the wider network.
The core team will also need to work through the mix of email, blogging, and wikispace they - and the network - will need. Again, there are people ready to help.
What soon becomes evident, of course, is that networky working takes a pretty strong commitment to doing things differently and helping others come along with you. It's tempting to think we now need a network development plan, a training plan, as well as a business plan and a marketing plan. That could easily tie up six months.
In practice I think it is a matter of getting started with good people, taking advice in avoiding pitfalls, learning as you go along, and building up a strong sense of trust and commitment. Not a bad learning process for an organisation in the business of promoting engagement.
If any Omnigraffle users would like to improve the diagram, download original here, or there's the pdf here.
More in this site about people, partnerships, participation and networks.
As an experiment in attribution ... thanks for ideas and inspiration to Lee Bryant and Livio Hughes at Headshift, Johnnie Moore, Simon Berry of Ruralnet, and Ton Zijlstra ... even though they may not know I was listening, or even entirely agree.
Previously posted at Partnerships Online
Update: Richard Wilson, director of Involve, says he is very happy to confirm that they are the networky organisation in question - and already applying the ideas to project development. Now for some work on what that will mean online and in other ways.
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