Why Our Nonprofits Need To Network (With Other Nonprofits)

I have a problem with today’s cerebral palsy (CP) interventions and treatments: they’re barely making a difference. Typically they result in only 4-10% lifetime gains or improvements* and that’s not good enough. I want to see those numbers doubled or tripled -- pronto. 

But -- 

Can anyone tell me who’s in charge of upping the percentages? With whom should I get in touch? 

One might guess that the responsible party is one of the twenty-five (25) or so US-or-Canada-based nonprofits whose mission has to do with improving outcomes as they relate to CP. The fact of the matter, however, is that no single organization is responsible. Nor could it be. The challenge – how to dramatically increase the effectiveness of our interventions – is way too complex. Too many layers and uncertainties are tied to it.

It’s actually a great example of the kind of “wicked” problem that’s best tackled by a network. One of countless such problems our special needs communities face.

Wicked problems don’t have one right solution. They’re solved through trial and error, consensus decision making, and experimenting-and-learning your way to what works. Networked collaboration is the most efficient way to share the associated costs, risks, resources, etc. And our new digital infrastructure can make it all the more efficient.

The great promise of networked collaboration is that everybody wins. Each participant “gets better faster” by working with other participants. The objectives of all stakeholders are advanced while the larger issue /shared problem is addressed. The authors of The Power of Pull also stress the value of long-term relationships that are often fostered: "As participants get to know each other and find that they share similar ways of looking at their endeavors, they start to trust one another, which prompts even deeper levels of collaboration (and tacit knowledge creation) around the difficult challenges they share." 

Of course, success depends on how well you collaborate, i.e., on how well the work itself is orchestrated. There are plenty of big thinkers out there sorting out the various management approaches being taken, trying to uncover best practices, etc. Here, in closing, are two good examples and potential resources for you:

• The Tapscott Group is actively exploring methods for making collaboration happen both within organizations and via multi-stakeholder networks. 

• FasterCures has been studying ways that networks of organizations are collaborating to expedite biomedical research. Its Consortia-pedia provides an in-depth look at the "research-by-consortium" trend and is loaded with information meant to help guide and inform emerging and existing collaborative efforts.

*  *  *  *  * 

Nonprofit networks are among the most powerful forces that an organization can channel for the greater good.

Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits

*per Dr. Iona Novak, Head of Research at CP Alliance

ROUND EIGHT: Everything's Peachy

Here's what I take away from 99% of the online communications I see from organizations operating in and around the cerebral palsy / neurological disorders / brain research / special needs arena: 

Everything's peachy.

You had a great 2013. 
You're right on track for 2014. 
You know just what you're doing. (You're "collaborating.") 
Sure you could use a ton of money -- for what, you rarely say -- but outside o' that?

Peachy.

If I'm reading you correctly that means:

• Your operations are going like gangbusters and need no improving. Your processes are smooth and efficient. As for your programs, products, and services? They're all grand slam home runs.

• The dozens of projects to which you've committed are being broken down into smaller task-chunks and getting checked off -- on time, in every department, to great effect. (That you selected the right projects based on the right strategies in the first place goes without saying.) 

• You're adequately addressing all the "look into" things you and your staff have been hoping and meaning to explore or pursue but haven't had the time to. 

If that's what you're telling me, I'm sorry but --  

I don't buy it for a minute. 

For a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that so few organizations are as well oiled or productive as they could be. 

I believe you could use all kinds of help. 

Curiously enough, though, your communications never say so explicitly. You show no signs you're in the market for any of the kinds of help I alluded to above. You never say you don't know. You never acknowledge you need more expertise or resources. You never discuss things that flop.

You never let 'em see you sweat. 

That's par for the management and organizational-communications course historically. Remember earlier web sites? 100% PR-filtered and one-way. ("This is what we decided to say about ourselves after we had a chance to deliberate.") I'm not surprised that many of your sites still are. But the fact that I'm seeing the same sorts of patterns with regard to your blogs and Facebook pages concerns me.

How come?

Well, I tend to go along with an observation Dan Pallotta made in his much circulated TED speech from March of 2013, that "Our problems are massive in scale [and] our organizations are tiny up against them."  

Our problems are massive. 

Current conventional CP therapies offer only a 4-10% average gain for any particular individual.* One in eighty-eight children is being diagnosed with autism. We can't afford for our organizations, individually and /or collectively, to be tiny up against our challenges. Not everything's peachy.

What's social media got to do with it? 

I wouldn't go so far as to say that our social media approaches and practices are keeping us tiny. I would say, however, that they're not doing much to make us bigger up against our challenges. And I believe they could.  

And must.

What makes social media special is its two-way-ness. The ability to use it to "engage with" (as opposed to "broadcast to") others. Especially w/ lots of others. A general formula that seems to be emerging for using social media to advance one's mission? Help others help you. Improve your performance by helping smart and passionate others improve their own performance.

Practically speaking, the idea is to (1.) put your true organizational self out there, (2.) tell the world what, specifically, is important to your future success, and (3.) invite people to apply their talents, creativity, and skills to it. How to do these things, e.g., what inducements to offer would-be participants, depends on you and your context. 

My response /call to action:

I'm experimenting with something that could conceivably help your organization "open itself up" to additional help from the outside. Via my Parents2Projects Facebook page and "Calls 2 Action" map (below) I'm trying to get the word out to potential workers / helpers / service providers that there's much important work to be done in our community. 

You may be able to help your organization by telling me what help you want or need. Tell me about projects, would-be projects, or specific tasks you could use some help completing. From the profound to the mundane. Of any size or scope. Shoot 'em my way and I'll see what I can do to connect you with low- or no-cost "people power" to get them done. Please contact me here, or through Facebook.

What's there to lose? Who's to say we couldn't drum up a critical mass of participants and amplify our productivity and impact beyond our wildest dreams?

Create your own mind maps at MindMeister 

*per Dr. Iona Novak from CP Alliance in Australia

ROUND FOUR: What CP Parents Are For (Part D.3)

How may orgs inside the CP sphere fully realize the potential of collaborative communities?

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE 

For those in the earliest, exploratory, stages of this relatively deeper form of constituent or customer engagement, it might help to think "grassroots." Think in terms of what you can do to expand parents' and families' opportunities to creatively address their own immediate needs. (where they can bring local knowledge, i.e., knowledge of what works in their particular contexts, to bear) 

For example?

I've written about the challenge of having as a parent to juggle so many different health care providers. There has to be a saner way. Since no clear-cut solution has shown itself, however, maybe a collaborative community could help? Maybe said community could look at the pros and cons of -- one plausible solution -- training and churning out more physiatrists? As an alternative, care maps seem to hold promise. (See my Thanks For Asking.) Maybe a parents' working group could form around using and maximzing their potential for our purposes? Both of these seem like the sorts of projects that would be well in line with, and that would advance the missions of, a UCP or RFTS.

MISSION DRIVEN

Another general starting place would be to ask (as a leader of an organization) what stands between where you are now and where you want to be: What are the key challenges or opportunities your organization needs to be work on, and could community collaboration be applied as a way of delivering value? Could it be employed to move projects forward?

Projects?

Projects that have been started but not completed. Projects to which you've committed but not yet planned out. And also... 

"Look into" projects. Per personal productivity guru David Allen, "One of the most interesting, subtle, and underutilized distinctions is whether a possible action or project is one that should be moved on, or whether it can simply be started at a later date, or perhaps not moved on at all." Here's how he describes his own look intos: 

My personal Someday /Maybe list is quite a bit longer than my active list of projects. It includes some ideas on one end of that spectrum that I would consider in the "fantasy" category -- like taking a canoe trip down the Mississippi River. On the more "realistic" side, it contains projects like scanning my old photos for digital storage and rewriting a segment of our Web site. Nothing in this category has a specific next action attached to it-- that's a defining characteristic.

I'm curious to know how many of our CP-facing-organization leaders keep a formal, up-to-date Someday /Maybe list?

Here are three (3) would-be projects of my own that could conceivably be tackled by collaborative communities:

• keep abreast of how other diseases or conditions are being chipped away at and beaten (from a management perspective) 

• map the relevant, ongoing CP-related research in one place (could be a wiki, or a mindmapping, or a database project) 

• How about a wiki or mindmap covering all the therapeutic and other interventions being offered around the globe, along with their various providers? This recently published CP Alliance and Notre Dame research analysis, A Systematic Review of Interventions for Children with Cerebral Palsy: State of the Evidence, would be a terrific jumping off point. 

Projects can originate from every part, i.e., from every level, of an organization, and can address the most mundane to the most sublime of intentions -- even an individual organization's missions, visions, and values. Even the direction our multi-stakeholder networks* seem to be heading together. 

At least a couple of visions seem to be coalescing around expediting CP-related research, medicine, clinical trials, etc. I'm all for them, but I'd also remind leaders that their visions are no more than human-made, mental constructs. They're sets of ideas that, bluntly, and not to be discouraging, score a zero percent (0%) on the "how they favorably impact my daughter's life today" test -- and that are also subject to being wrong in whole or in part. The only way to find out is to test, test, test them. If we want to be social-scientific in our approaches, we should be transparent. We should expose our thoughts about the future -- today -- and invite as much commentary from as many smart people as we can. 

Who's to say what a collaborative community made up of lots of engaged CP parents and others...working together online, making said planning and visioning their own, taking it to heart...could or couldn't contribute?

* alliances, consortia, partnerships and the like