Collective action is an effective way for nonprofits to increase their impact, but they often lack the key capacities that enable these types of partnerships to thrive. Nonprofits need time and space to explore and employ the power of collective action to advance their missions. They also need organizational slack, and board and staff leaders who are adept at building relationships and sharing power and responsibility.
Networks of nonprofits, funders and other partners have the potential to build new capacity for making progress on complex problems and achieving significant measurable results. However, understanding the influence of networks and their results can be a challenge. Like social change itself, networks are emergent and nonlinear.
Taking time early in the grantmaking process to map out the stakeholders affected by our work, and their position in the ecosystem, helps creates a deeper understanding of key issues. It also prepares us to address future concerns and to tap stakeholder expertise in a proactive way that helps build agreement and buy-in that ultimately leads to more effective programs. In order to do this well, grantmakers need to master stakeholder analysis and determine how to bring key players into decision-making.
While we may not be able to totally remove the inherent power imbalance between grantmakers, our grantees and the communities we serve, we can take steps to build more trusting, honest and authentic relationships.
Denver-area United Way embraces need to strengthen the capacity of organizations and communities to measure impact and learn from results.
Partnering for Greater Impact
Many grantmakers agree that an increased focus on evaluation and learning can help us tease out insights on our true impact and how we can continue to do better. However, despite significant investments in evaluation in recent years, philanthropy continues to struggle to measure its work.
Many grantmakers are recognizing that in order to ensure better results, we need to tap into the knowledge experience and energy of key stakeholders — nonprofits, community members, other funders, thought leaders.
Grantmakers of all kinds care about tangible progress on tough problems, but we also seek harder-to-measure results. Networks for social change can help on both of these fronts, building new capacity for making progress on complex problems and achieving significant measurable results. Tapping into network connections is becoming the norm for social change makers, whether we’re mapping influential relationships for an advocacy campaign, coordinating a protest to fight climate change or spreading an approach to community engagement
A priority for grantmakers and our grantees is to create a space to reflect and learn so that our organizations can become more relevant, and more effective in achieving our goals. Learning, and evaluation, that is specifically focused on improvement provides grantmakers and grantees with the information and the perspective we need to better understand both how we’re doing in our work and how to get better results.
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