NNSI Editorial Team

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators

​​Tips & Tools for Network Instigators: Managing Change (3/3)

From technology to fashion to social-issue intervention, nothing stays stagnant. As COVID highlighted, organizations need to be ready to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. How can organizations, especially those in social impact networks, prepare for a changing landscape? One strategy that social impact organizations can use to prepare for change is to enhance their organization’s absorptive capacity. As our previous two blogs have shown, a network’s ability to manage change—both

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators: Managing Change (2/3)

Networks are similar to suspension bridges. They are held together and supported by the organizations that compose them. Our previous blog covered changes in the whole network, but impactful change can happen among organizational members. Change within a member organization can upset the balance of the network, impacting one or many organizations in the network.  Consider a scenario where a critical participating organization undergoes a management change. A new manager

People sitting at the table
Tips & Tools for Network Instigators

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators: Managing Change (1/3)

In 2018, the Westside Infant-Family Network (WIN) received $16 million to aid their efforts to increase trauma resilience across west-central and south Los Angeles. WIN is a nonprofit network comprised of eight agency partners established in 2006 to provide mental health resources to families with generational mental health challenges. At first glance, an unknowing onlooker might never know that WIN came from humble beginnings. But, when they started, WIN faced

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators: The VOICE Heuristic

This blog will outline The VOICE Heuristic, another tool from Michelle Shumate and Katherine R. Cooper’s book, Networks for Social Impact. The VOICE Heuristic is a helpful way for network instigators to manage ongoing conflict within a nonprofit network. What is the purpose of The VOICE Heuristic? The VOICE Heuristic provides a backup plan for times when conflict management fails to rectify a conflict between disagreeing parties in a nonprofit

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators: Stakeholder Participation Tool

In this blog, the NNSI team outlines a helpful tool for nonprofit networks to keep track of stakeholder attendance and participation in meetings. The Stakeholder Participation Tool comes from Michelle Shumate and Katherine R. Cooper’s book, Networks for Social Impact.  What is the purpose of a Stakeholder Participation Tool? A Stakeholder Participation Tool keeps track of who attends and participates in nonprofit network meetings. Many nonprofit stakeholders are part of

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators

Tips & Tools for Network Instigators: Fiscal Sponsorship

In this blog, the NNSI team untangles a new tip for network instigators: Fiscal Sponsorship. This tip, like all the “Tips & Tools for Network Instigators,” is straight out of  Michelle Shumate and Katherine R. Cooper’s book, Networks for Social Impact. Fiscal sponsorship is a resource management technique for new networks that allow networks to operate as a program of another organization, delaying the need for them to have their