networking your institution dc june 2013

Networking your NGO for the Citizen Age

Washington, DCJune 2013

Who is this guy?

About Communicopia

About us

We are a boutique digital consultancy working

globally for change. We lead transformational

digital projects that help social mission

organizations increase their impact &

effectiveness in a networked world.

Our clients

Include Human Rights Watch, NRDC, Tar Sands

Solutions Network, UN Foundation, The Elders, &

the TckTckTck global climate campaign. We also

founded the Web of Change community.

We live in times of massive systems change

The web & networks are creating new models

Audiences have tuned out

Faith in institutions is at all time low

Complex world. People see connections

They expect more. Want to give more.

Rapid growth of networked orgs

Rise of “free agent” changemakers

The web has changed advocacy

Initial web = publishing

Networked web = conversations

The web past & presentTraditional Web Today’s Web

• Knowledge share via textPublishing

• Drive traffic homeMy Site

• Email list• Site trafficGrow Base

• Asks: send $ or “form email”

Simple Advocacy

Storytelling

Meet Where They Are

Social + Distributed

Meaningful Participation

Most institutions lack the people, structure, &

culture to lead in this new world

Everyone a campaigner

25 Mill

• MOBILISATION STRATEGY AND DESIGN :: creative and collaborative

workshops with multidisciplinary teams

• ASSESSMENTS AND REVIEW :: evaluating past performance to inform

future mobilisation efforts

• DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH :: building a culture of data-driven

campaigning, designing tests with campaigns and offices, and setting up

controlled experiments to optimize and improve performance

• TRAINING AND PEER LEARNING :: skill-building, knowledge sharing, and

network building

• STORYTELLING AND KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER :: sharing innovations,

lessons learned, fail stories, and emerging best practices

• STAFFING SUPPORT :: advising on staffing structures, integration efforts,

and hands-on support with talent recruitment and hiring

• INNOVATION INCUBATION :: piloting new ways of working, from

practices to technologies

• SYSTEMS CHANGE :: advising global organisation, campaign teams, and

national/regional offices on new ways of working

4 Models +

A Digital Team Developmental

Framework

Digital Team Development

Foundation Optimized Integrated Low

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A framework to understand digital evolution

Informal

Centralized or Independent

Hybrid

Goal Online Presence Acquisition & Retention Innovation

Key Activity Publishing Managing Engaging

Culture Reactive Strategic Transformative

Foundation Teams

26

Foundation Teams

27

You are probably at this level if you…

• Are not focused on digital as a core competency, or have

just started to look at it more closely

• Have one or two junior staff working on digital who are

likely overwhelmed, reactive, and in a tactical support

mode

• Primary focus is publishing: basic digital content on a

schedule or in reaction to internal demands, with little time

to curate, connect, or promote key content

• Have basic but limited website + technology in place

• Are not actively driving traffic to campaigns or fundraising

Optimized Teams

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Optimized Teams

29

You are probably at this level if you…

• Have a digital director who provides some leadership

• Have a centralized or independent digital team(s),

supported by reliable contractors and partners

• Have a stable website and core technology framework

• Have a growing or flat constituency and fundraising base

• Manage an outbound marketing plan, track sophisticated

metrics, and know what is producing the best results

• Are focused on refining and optimizing digital activity in

order to grow & retain supporters

• Are able to respond well to changing external conditions

Integrated Teams

30

Integrated Teams (are very rare!)

31

You are only at this level if you…

• Are good at optimizing and maintain your lead here

• Have excellent technology that is agile and adaptive

• Have a high level organizational strategy (ie focus)

• Use digital channels strategically to build community

and relationships with supporters at all touchpoints

• Digital is integrated w/program, comms, fundraising

• Have a team focused on some core digital services but as much on supporting and enabling others to lead

• Are focused on continuous learning and innovation of the whole institution rather than pure departmental goals

Networked Nonprofits

A term coined by Beth Kanter and Allison Fine

Networked Nonprofits

Simple & Transparent OrgsNetworked nonprofits are easy for outsiders to get in and insiders to get out. They engage people to shape and share their work.

They work differently than other orgs. They engage in conversations with people beyond their walls to build relationships that spread their work through the network. Relationship building is a core responsibility of staff. They are all comfortable using social media to encourage two way communications between people.

Networked Nonprofits

Beth’s Three Attributes: Social culture. Transparency. Simplicity.

Other attributes:

• Smaller budget, less reliant on staff-driven model

• Focus on doing a few things well

• Hold back resources to jump on big, emergent opportunities

• Project based structures focused on outcomes

• Staff are ambidextrous + sometimes younger (Millennials)

• Listen well. Many are actually member-driven

• No barriers between “online” and “real world” work

Institutions born after the Internet

How are they different?

Driven by policy, run by experts, focused on elites

Traditional Nonprofits

Create & promote policy solutions

Find the right policy answers. Run many long

term campaigns promoting or defending them.

Expert based culture

Program / policy professionals drive the ship.

The “real work” of the institution. Senior

leaders were often experts previously, not

managers.

“Grass-tops” audiences

Communications & campaigns typically

targeted at senior decision makers or media.

Policy

Traditional Nonprofits

• Very silo’d structures: departments compete for resources,

disincentives to collaborate

• Hierarchical, top down cultures: young/web ppl not asked

• Gap between what supporters are interested in (cause) and

most organizational comms work (policy) is very wide

• Small donor fundraising drives “regular people” work & owns

supporter lists. Sometimes even runs parallel programs

• Typically very protective of & conservative with brand

• Incentive to always promote their own experts/reports/wins,

acting somewhat narcissistically

• Often work in isolation, or in cumbersome coalitions

Additional attributes

Online is a faux grassroots strategy

NGO’s struggle with digital

Online is separate: Run within one silo, it has metrics focused

on list growth, struggles to keep up with publishing demands,

much less drive new outreach models based on engagement.

Other challenges:

• Online lives in communications, driven by content needs

• Communications is under-invested in across the sector

• Dept that does “real world” is separate from “online”

• Culturally, leadership built careers being experts, being

perfect, being professional, being the best, having control

It’s not about building a big list

Network orgs are built around a high

engagement model

People lie at the core of their Theory of Change

Network Orgs

Social culture

Co-create or improve solutions along with

partners & people outside their walls.

Transparent model

Openly share theory of change. Comfortable

with emergence, testing, & learning in public.

Simple focus

A clear goal and limited program areas. Also

stronger investment in comms, messaging, UX.

People

The model suits our times

Maps directly to web values: Transparency. More

conversational style. Meet people on their terms. Enable self-

organizing systems. Offer meaningful participation.

Other benefits:

• Complex world, difficult issues take many players

• Can stretch fewer resources a long way

• Engages talents locked up in our communities

• Can turn on a dime; focus big attention on opportunities

• Innovation doesn’t always come from experts; front lines

An adaptive model for a rapidly changing world

Greenpeace Mobilization Integration Toolkit

http://www.mobilisationlab.org/integration-toolkit

Innovations in people-powered campaigning and digital mobilisation from around the world.

Signup for dispatches:MobilisationLab.org

Join campaigners from 350.org, ActionAid, Oxfam, Red Cross, Save the Children and otherleading organisations.

@MobilisationLab

Digital Team Development

Foundation Optimized Integrated Low

per

form

ing

Hig

h pe

rfor

min

g

A framework to understand digital evolution

Informal

Centralized or Independent

Hybrid

WITNESS

Continue the conversation

Communicopia

Communicopia.com

@communicopia

@mogusmoves

jason@communicopia.com

How to get in touch with us

Mob Lab @Greenpeace

MobilisationLab.org

@mobilisationlab

@silbatron

michael.silberman@greenpeace.org

Thanks to our co-sponsors

This is not about technology.

It’s about relationships.