PURE INSIDERS WANTED
It's time for our nonprofits to stop seeing the millions of us inside-outsiders as walking wallets and free labor (at worst) or as passive consumers (at best). Stop. And start thinking, instead, about converting us into evangelists for your various causes.
One of the more influential books on nonprofit management of the past few years is Forces for Good. (Crutchfield and Grant, 2012) In it, the authors lay out six practices the high-performing organizations they've studied use to magnify their impact in the world. My favorite of the six suggests that -- in order to help create "an ever-expanding circle of impact" -- nonprofits should strive to turn outsiders into insiders, i.e., co-creators of organizational value.
CO-PRODUCERS. CO-DEVELOPERS.
What's their recipe for turning outsiders into insiders? Among other things, you have to "go beyond traditional notions of volunteerism, transcend mundane tactics, and create opportunities for people to actively participate."
CO-WORKERS.
When I put it that way, do you see the parallels between outsourcing work and the authors' idea of turning outsiders into co-creators? Outsourcing is an opportunity for inside-outsiders to contribute, to make a difference. It's engagement by another name.
CO-PRODUCERS. CO-DEVELOPERS.
What's their recipe for turning outsiders into insiders? Among other things, you have to "go beyond traditional notions of volunteerism, transcend mundane tactics, and create opportunities for people to actively participate."
CO-WORKERS.
When I put it that way, do you see the parallels between outsourcing work and the authors' idea of turning outsiders into co-creators? Outsourcing is an opportunity for inside-outsiders to contribute, to make a difference. It's engagement by another name.
I want to move on to Bridgespan Group's conceptions of constituent engagement, next, to help tie some of these things together.
No comments:
Post a Comment