Supporting Impact Networks
Collaboration as a way of working
To achieve our vision, mission and goal, Small Foundation’s investments and activities – both financial and non-financial – will not be sufficient. To have meaningful impact on the rural MSME ecosystem, we need to work collaboratively to achieve our shared aims. This collaborative imperative drives our way of working.
Our Network Practice
Our ambition to support networks is drawn from our recognition that collaboration across systems is required. Since 2018, Small Foundation has increasingly seen ‘impact networks’ as a means of effectively supporting collaboration in service of our vision, mission and goal.
What we mean by an impact network
Impact networks are dynamic, multi-stakeholder initiatives that drive intentional connection, coordination and collaboration focused on a common purpose. That common purpose is often centred on addressing ‘complex’ problems – which by necessity require a range of stakeholders to engage in order to shift them. Impact networks build means of engaging network members around these shared challenges that are at the heart of their existence, ensuring that this purpose becomes their driving rationale and focus.
In impact networks, the purpose is co-created by the network members and is therefore co-owned. We believe this is an important means of generating trusting relationships, which are fundamental to the success of the network. This trust is further strengthened by each member’s shared interest in engaging with the networks’ purpose, balanced with a self-interest in learning, understanding or engaging with the shared purpose in a new way, through the network.
Our theory of change
We believe networks create the conditions for meaningful collaboration in three ways: increasing connectivity between actors, encouraging coordination of information and action, and – over time – enabling collaboration in pursuit of system change.
Collaborative activities – typically evidenced by the sharing of human or financial resources between members – are difficult. It is through these emergent, collaborative actions that we believe the conditions for systems impact ultimately emerge.
How we measure network success
At the start of our network investment journey, we understood the importance of measuring how networks could deliver collaborative outcomes. As a result, our focus has been on understanding network performance around connectivity, network health and emergent collaborative outcomes, rather than compliance to a set number of predetermined targets or indicators. Our approach aims to provide network coordinators with critical information to support their ability to coordinate, grow and sustain their networks more effectively, building on our network theory of change above.
