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2007 (May/June) Roundtables: "Are You Maximizing the Value of Your Network?"

The topic of our May and June Roundtables was: "Are You Maximizing the Value of Your Network?" It proved to be such an important topic to grantees that we held two sessions (one in Maine on May 22nd and a second in New Hampshire on June 5th) to accommodate all who wanted to attend.

The sessions evolved from a seminar on Social Enterprise Networking hosted by Professor Jane Wei-Skillern at the Harvard Business School. Elizabeth Isele (Great Bay Senior Program Director) attended the seminar which was designed to present the latest research findings to funders and practitioners in the field so they might better understand how their organizations can increase mission impact through more deliberative, proactive networking. This area of research is new, and Jane Wei-Skillern is at the forefront of the research and its practical applications.

Data collected indicates that many nonprofit social entrepreneurs fail to maximize their networks. The three biggest reasons found for this resource under-utilization are: 1. nonprofit social entrepreneurs have not or do not know how to map all the assets in their networks; 2. nonprofit social entrepreneurs do not understand the value of their networks and are, therefore, not willing to allocate time to work them, and;  3.  even if nonprofit social entrepreneurs can map and do understand the value of their networks, they do not know how to leverage those assets to maximize the resources at hand.

Networking is not just a nice social engagement; it is a vital tool available to social entrepreneurs to help them achieve mission impact and sustainability. The purpose of these roundtables was to allow Great Bay Grantees to share what their organizations have accomplished through their networks and provide insights for others to develop strategic networking to enhance their mission impact and sustainability.

Key questions addressed included:

1.How to identify/map the key players in your network?
2.How do such key players as: funders, board members, other social entrepreneurs, consultants, suppliers, corporate partners, community leaders, government policy makers, contribute to your mission impact?
3.How to leverage individual components of your network to maximize your success?

As usual, the dialogue was both engaging and informative!