HOW WE WORK
Our collaborative approach yields customized advice grounded in rigorous research
What we center in our approach
Focus on relationships
Relationships are the bedrock of our consulting practice. We value the opportunity to collaborate and learn alongside our clients and partners, whether on new projects or in extended engagements.
Attention to context
We invest time in getting to know our clients and partners and the networks they are building. Understanding a network’s unique character and trajectory helps us ground field level learnings in context.
Rigorous research
Our team has deep expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. We conduct qualitative case studies, gather and analyze network survey data, produce visual representations of network relationships based on Social Network Analysis and work with large datasets to uncover network patterns.
Field-tested frameworks
Over the last decade, we have developed several frameworks to guide network strategy and evaluation. These are distilled from systematic research across a variety of network settings.
Network Impact’s Connectivity, Alignment, Production framework (CAP framework) helps funders and organizers think strategically about network design
INFORMATION
All networks start with connectivity linking people to each other. Some networks end there; their “mission” is simply to connect.
IDENTITY
Alignment occurs when network members come to share a common set of ideas, values or standards. Alignment can be an end in itself for some networks.
INITIATIVE
Connectivity and Alignment are essential foundations for the development of a production network. Production is what networks do when their members work to accomplish something together.
Anti-racist commitment
As advocates for network organizing, we are committed to assist and learn from individuals, institutions, networks and social movements that are engaged in anti-racist work. This includes reflecting on ways that cultural assumptions rooted in racism or other systems of oppression may be manifest in the larger society and in our own practice.
