We Network

Site Visits, Events, Working Groups & Digital Networking

Across South Africa there are many groups and individuals working to improve the lives of women and children at risk. Working independently, each organisation or church can do something valuable, but by working together their efforts can be multiplied to make a greater impact.

Thus Connect Network was created to link those organisations and churches in order to facilitate information sharing, increase communication, and essentially help affiliates improve their own programmes and services.

A network is a group of individuals and organisations who come together around one or more clearly defined commonalities to exchange information and/or undertake joint activities and who organise themselves in such a way that their individual autonomy remains intact.
- P. Starkey

By building effective relationships between the network affiliates, other NGOs and churches through site visits, focus groups and open network meetings, we create a sense of reciprocity and trust in the Network.

This creates synergies between organisations and provides a better understanding of how to best mobilise and distribute resources amongst the communities.

Networked nonprofits are some of the most effective nonprofits in the world. They are different from traditional nonprofits in that they cast their gazes externally rather than internally. They put their mission first and their organisation second. They govern through trust rather than control. And they cooperate as equal nodes in a constellation of actors rather than relying on a central hub to command with top-down tactics. By mobilising vast external resources, networked nonprofits can focus on their own expertise. At the same time, these external resources enhance the value and influence of each organisation's expertise. They help each network partner respond to local needs and become self-sustaining. And they allow networked nonprofits to develop holistic solutions at the scale of the problems they seek to address. Although the social problems that nonprofits are tackling are growing in both magnitude and complexity, funding is failing to keep pace. Networks do not require more resources, but rather a better use of existing resources. And so networked nonprofits are uniquely poised to face the perennial challenge of the nonprofit sector: achieving lofty missions with decidedly humble means.
- Stanford University Social Innovation Review, Spring 2008

Click here to read more on building social capital through networks.