Founding Membership Campaign
The Annual Meeting participants said that they want to make GAN-Net into a membership organization. This topic was not originally on the meeting agenda, but it arose during our half-day planning session as we talked about GAN-Net's future vision and strategy. Until now GAN-Net has operated with a "stewardship" board of directors who have been providing strategic guidance and operational advice to the Network coordinators (Steve Waddell and Bill Snyder). A Core Group of three GAN leaders has also helped provide direction.
The membership proposal came up because people wanted to formalize their support for GAN-Net and to help finance GAN-Net's administrative costs. GAN-Net project activities will be funded through participation fees and matching funds from sponsors.
To launch our membership drive, we are inviting GAN leaders and stakeholders to become "founding members" of GAN-Net - anytime between now and June 30. At that point, we will begin general membership recruitment activities. Founding members will have unique opportunities to contribute and influence GAN-Net's evolving vision and strategy early in its development. GAN-Net is structured as a stakeholder organization, with GANs themselves as the core market. Therefore, inter-governmental, governmental, and non-governmental organizations and foundations may become members; businesses that meet ethical criteria are also invited to join.
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Six Projects for GAN Development
Open to GAN Participation
Six project proposals targeting priority development issues have been raised in teleconferences over the past 6 months and were confirmed and elaborated by participants at the Annual Meeting. GAN leaders and stakeholders are invited to participate - letting us know by replying to Steve Waddell at swaddell@gan-net.net.
Each proposal includes collaborating with peer GANs and external experts over a period of nine months to a year. This will provide an unusual opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences and generate new tools, methods, case studies, and other knowledge resources to support GANs work. Each initiative will include two to three face-to-face meetings, monthly e-conferences, case studies, tool-development activities, and teleconferences for the broader GAN-Net community. The proposals are structured to help GANs address crucial issues more effectively and efficiently by working together.
The Metanoia Fund will provide up to $25,000 in matching funds for each project proposal. GANs and stakeholder participants are expected to contribute staff time and pay their travel expenses. GAN-Net staff will help GAN leaders raise project fees from their funders.
Read the full proposal document
The proposals are -
- Governance Project
- Measuring Impact
- GAN Collaboration in Central America
- E-conferencing for GANs
- Strategic Planning
- Building GANs' Power
Some additional information follows.
1. Governance Project
GANs face unique governance challenges because they are a new type of organization that is global, public issue focused, with multi-stakeholders in a network structure. Historically they can be seen as evolving beyond traditional government, business, and non-governmental organizations that have long histories of development. The GAN-Net Governance Project will explore and develop governance options that are particularly suited to GANs. The project will address questions such as:
- What are the emerging models of governance for GANs?
- What is the relationship between the governance model and a GAN's stage of development?
- How can the tension be balanced between the goals for efficiency, financial sustainability, quality, and participatory processes?
- How can creative bottom-up energy be encouraged?
- What type of leadership is necessary and how can it be nurtured?
- What is the relationship between paid and volunteer participants?
2. Measuring Impact
This topic was of interest to most people at the Annual Meeting. It directly relates to questions of funding since funders raise the issue regularly, and it directly relates to management of GANs and understanding where to allocate scarce resources. The GAN-Net Measurement Project will identify and develop measurement approaches that GANs can use to assess results, guide development, and make their value visible to local and global stakeholders. It will review measurement approaches to address questions such as:
- What are key criteria of a successful measurement approach for GANs?
- What kinds of data - statistics, surveys, interviews, stories, etc. - are most credible and compelling to sponsors and stakeholders?
- What are the limitations and advantages of different types of data?
- What are the best ways to document, interpret, and report results?
- How do you compare results across organizations?
- Given the cost of measurement, how do you decide what measures you really need?
3. GAN Collaboration in Central America
This project is distinct from the others because it aims to develop inter-GAN action to more effectively address individual GAN issues. Although GANs work on diverse issues ranging from sustainable food systems to youth employment, the issues often overlap and GANs share a similar way of operating as global to local multi-stakeholder networks. This suggests that by working together GANs could: 1) reduce duplication of effort; 2) realize synergies on overlapping issues; 3) share expertise and network relationships to overcome common obstacles; and 4) relieve the excessive burden on local NGOs trying to respond to uncoordinated requests by various GANs. This project invites GANs to work together in Central America to:
- Develop a strategy for collaboration among GANs and the multiple, intersectoral stakeholders engaged in the work.
- Work together to begin testing that strategy to address a shared set of public-good outcomes, while realizing operational and advocacy synergies.
4. E-conferencing for GANs
Early last fall GAN-Net worked with GANs to develop a process to pilot e-conferencing in individual GANs. The technology promises to:
- Significantly improve communications beyond current e-mail and teleconferencing.
- Reduce travel for cost and time savings.
- Eliminate teleconference costs.
In this project GAN-Net will work with up to five individual GANs to pilot their application of e-conferencing. The participating GANs will gain access to technology so up to 30 people can participate in one conference.
5. Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is critical for GANs as they grow and assume increasingly influential global stewardship roles. But GANs cannot rely on conventional planning processes to achieve their potential. GANs in particular must learn to apply strategy-making approaches that account for boundary-crossing partnerships, local-global interdependencies, and changing assumptions regarding how best to achieve public good outcomes. This project will address the following questions:
- How should strategic-planning processes be adapted - or new methods developed - to identify network capabilities and match them to the GANs' market challenges and opportunities?
- How can we leverage innovative models that emphasis emergence, "coopetition," stakeholder engagement, transparency, and diverse network partners?
- How should the focus of strategic planning evolve as a network grows - from start-up to maturity to transformation?
6. Building GANs' Power
GANs are a new type of organization which is becoming increasingly important. Today they are weak in comparison to business, governments, and NGOs. However, they provide a critical weaving function to leverage the power of these organizations. If GANs develop their potential, a global meeting of GAN leaders 15 years from now would be at least as important as the UN General Assembly, the World Economic Forum, and the World Social Forum. This project invites GAN leaders to participate in dialogues that will focus upon the following questions:
- What are the key characteristics and competencies necessary for effective global governance mechanisms?
- What are the key characteristics of GANs?
- How do these characteristics and competencies compare to those needed for global governance mechanisms?
- If GANs collectively were to integrate those characteristics and competencies, what might a global governance that reflects this look like?
Read the full proposal document
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Global Dialogue Teleconferences
Multi-stakeholder dialogues - at local and global levels - are key mechanisms by which GANs achieve systemic change. This ongoing program of teleconferences features leading practitioners in the field, from regions worldwide, applying their skills and frameworks to current problems. Participants have the opportunity to see their expertise in action and to join in the problem-solving work. The Global Dialogue teleconference series is presented to GAN-Net members thorough GAN-Net's association with the Generative Dialogue Project.
The GDP is a community building and action research initiative. Its core focus is on the connection between personal and societal change and on the potential for transformative dialogic processes to generate radical change on a global scale. The GDP aims to contribute to the world's capacity for addressing complex global challenges, including problems such as environmental degradation, poverty and disease, and deepening political, social, and economic divides.
A series of teleworkshops with cases, including ones presented by GAN members, will begin in late April. These will be promoted on both the GAN-Net website and GDP website.
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