Building a Movement

Sometimes, the most important thing a nonprofit does is build a movement to enhance the cause its mission is built on, and that always involves a network, which this article from the Nonprofit Quarterly looks at.

An excerpt.

“An individual social movement can span many generations. During that time, it is likely to face many different, complicated political contexts. As time passes, a social movement develops its analysis of a problem and changes the language and definitions of things. Often, it meets success and then encounters the next round of problems caused by the preliminary solution gained. Its members will have passionate disagreements about strategy and approach such that they part ways and new members with new views emerge. In other words, movements are living beings, affected by all manner of influences and sometimes embodying great diversity. It is a marvel, then, that any social movement network stays knit together long enough to accomplish big societal change. How do these movement networks do it?

“Networks are not social movements; but social-justice movements need networks,” says Marco Davis, a veteran network builder in the Latino community. For anyone involved in a grassroots effort to create change, this statement may seem obvious. But it is hardly simple to describe or understand—even when you are right in the middle of it.

“What movement-oriented networks do best, and what it takes to build and invest in them over time, often seems difficult to pin down. At Management Assistance Group (MAG), my colleagues and I have worked with organizations that are part of movement networks, those that act as network hubs, and those that come together to create new networks. Some movement networks flourish and others falter. I set out to deepen our understanding of these movement networks by reviewing the scholarly research and interviewing creative, committed leaders who have built networks, even in the most unfriendly environments.

“The organic and responsive nature of networks makes them difficult to study. Networks play essential roles within movements; but how they do so and even which roles they play are not static. This fluidity causes movement networks sometimes to appear disorganized and unwieldy, which has led some to devalue their contribution and others to push for formal structure and control.

“But a deeper look suggests that openness and flexibility are necessary components. Without the ability to learn, adapt, and change, these networks wither and become uninviting and ultimately irrelevant to new leaders. They lose their ability to authentically respond to political and membership complexities and ever-changing needs of movements in the context of the unstill waters of society.

“The Essential Roles of Movement Networks

“While there are many different types of networks, for the purposes of this article we define movement networks as the following:
1. multi-organizational: movement networks link independent organizations and activists to one another and through a central hub organization;
2. movement oriented: movement networks intentionally contribute to a broader social movement;
3. focused on the long term: movement networks stick together for the long haul and join to advance interests that extend beyond a single-issue campaign; and
4. porous: movement networks have more flexible boundaries than a formal franchise structure, such as the Girl Scouts or Habitat for Humanity.”