How to Manage Networks: The Basics

Establishing a network requires a number of activities and considerations. Among them, there is a need for leaders from across the network that can “bear the torch” for the network. These leaders – whether formal or informal – will be the ones to rally people, energy, and resources around the idea that “we're here as a network, we have a shared purpose, we have a membership, and we're working together because we can't solve this issue we have any other way. This is why we have to have a network.” This role can be fulfilled by staff or by members (or both) but it is typically one or more people who are centrally positioned and well-connected within the network and who have the mindset and energy to motivate and mobilize.

In practice, these leaders must foster a shared understanding of what it means to be a network and to work together in that type of organizing model. That means instilling a network mindset into their own behaviors and into the behaviors and norms within the group. It means setting the rules of engagement and developing group processes and structures that embody that mindset. By embedding a network mindset into all of the interactions that they have and that they facilitate, they build the network’s potential for constructive engagement and collective action.

When we think about collective action within networks we can think about both the “what” and the “how.” To start, let’s clarify the definition of “network”. Our Collective Mind definition is that networks are organizing models that integrate participants who have common interests and work together to achieve shared goals. There is a built-in condition that common interests are necessary but not sufficient: a network must also a) have shared goals and b) be working towards achieving them together. Collective action in a network is then action within and across the network to achieve the shared goals. In other words, it is the work that members do together towards achieving the network’s shared purpose.

Collective action within a network can take many forms. These forms are the network functions, or types of activities, that any network may undertake in order to work towards its shared purpose. Network functions include activities like information sharing, knowledge management, learning and capacity building, and community building as well as advocacy and policy influence and thought leadership and field-building. A network will undertake the network functions, or configuration therein, that are most appropriate for its shared purpose and relevant to its membership – which means that collective action will look differently for different networks.

Each network function seeks to capture the combined value that lies within the network and, ideally, create value that is more than the sum of those combined parts. This is key to the “how”: that members are doing the work and working together. This is what’s different about a network – members are enabled and supported to define the goals and work together to achieve them together.

Member associations and networks exist along a continuum of member-based organizing models. In both member associations and networks, members who have common interests come together. Both member associations and networks may have a shared purpose, or a visionary goal that they seek to achieve through the organization. The core difference between a member association and a network is about where and how work gets done – i.e. how value gets created – and by whom.

Member associations are member-serving while networks are member-enabling. Member associations typically serve their members with benefits and offerings. The work of creating those benefits and offerings is done by a staff, the mission of which is to serve the members. These services will likely be created in response to member needs, but it is primarily the job of the staff to develop them and make them available to members. A network enables members to work together. Any benefits or offerings are devised by the members collectively through their collaborative efforts to set and achieve shared goals. Any staff (or volunteer) network managers are there not to deliver services but to facilitate, coordinate, and administer the members as they collaborate.

In a network, value is created by members, not for members. The types of activities of a member association or of a network – such as knowledge sharing or learning and capacity building – may be the same. What is different is that in a network, these activities are undertaken by the members themselves. The expectations within a member association will also likely be structured differently. For example, members will likely pay a fee to join a member association, for which they expect to receive benefits and services. In a network, members join in order to create value together. Members may pay fees (as they do in some networks) but members contribute also and primarily through their participation in helping to define and undertake activities, big and small.

Determining the difference between a network and a community first requires understanding what we mean by each term. For Collective Mind, we define “network” as an organizing model that integrates participants who have common interests and work together to achieve shared goals. All three parts of this definition are important to us: a) the existence of common interests, b) the existence of shared goals, and c) collective action to achieve those goals. Comparatively, we might define “community” - such as a community within a neighborhood or a community of professionals - as people who have common interests (a) but don’t necessarily have shared goals (b) that they’re together working to achieve (c).

It is less about what the collective is called and more about what it does. A network doesn’t have to use the label “network” - it might be called “community” - but it does matter that it integrates all of the three elements (a, b, and c) of the definition. The rationale for determining the difference between a network and a community is not to get caught up in semantics but that in clarifying what organizing model we’re working with, we can better understand how to make our network or community better towards whatever ends it is trying to achieve.

Like all networks, members in a confederation are aligned under a shared purpose with coordinated efforts to achieve collective impact. But compared to other types of network arrangements, confederations are structurally more specific, with more closed memberships, legal interdependence, and operational overlaps. Whereas other kinds of networks may have memberships made up of individuals, organizations, or a combination of the two, confederations are made up of organizational members. These members are independent organizations, typically with their own fiscal management and governance, but may have more substantive similarities and shared features than other types of networks -- such as programmatic offerings or program coordination, fiscal design, management structures, governance and policy design, staffing, measurement and reporting, and accountability, as well as mission. Confederations will also often have other partners that are "part" of the network with substantive roles in the network's externally-facing functions and shared purpose, but with a different type of relationship to the network and accountability than confederated members. Confederated network models can be called associations, chapters, leagues, a network of like-organizations or of networks, etc.

When we think of highly visible international networks, their members can objectively look like the "same" organization in terms of their purpose, structures, and types of offerings, but with different regional contexts, focus, management, etc., depending on the continent. They also have unifying umbrella organizations with their own role, mandates, and capacity in coordinating members and serving the shared purpose, such as leading cross-cutting policy advocacy or fundraising, with national and/or international Secretariats.

Importantly, because of their interdependence, reach, and the similar work of independent members, confederated networks have the capacity to have a significant, deep, and wide impact on the issue areas on which they focus.

Author: Emily Goodman

Keywords: confederated model, confederations, federations

There are a number of key distinctions we can highlight between an NGO and a network. They relate to both the practice of being a network and the rationale for one in the first place.

First and foremost is the rationale for working through a network, which is premised on what we’re trying to achieve. The reason we work in a network is that we have a shared purpose that is something that nobody can achieve by themselves. If one organization -- whether an NGO or a corporate firm, for that matter -- could achieve that shared purpose, they would just do so. But the types of shared purpose that networks are typically organized around are more complex. And the more complex they are, the more they necessitate -- absolutely require -- collaboration.

The complexity of the shared purpose requires that the network embody that complexity through the diversity of its members who come at the shared purpose from different perspectives with different ideas and resources to contribute to it. Anything that happens is collaborative and based on the inputs, work, and support from the members. We need the members to achieve the shared purpose: the potential and value in a network sit within the membership.

Once we understand the rationale for working through a network, the practice of being a network is about fostering the participation and contributions of the members. Doing that has implications for roles and responsibilities across the network -- such as how the members engage in the network, how any dedicated staff support that engagement, and how outputs and outcomes are achieved. Our ways of working must adapt to a horizontal organizing model that creates value through the participation of dispersed, decentralized members who are in fact the heart of the network.