Groups engaged in collective action with other groups and institutions – what we call “networks” – arise everywhere in civil society.  Look around and you will see networked action in joint funding efforts of the nation’s largest philanthropies, and you will see it in cross-sectoral endeavors involving governmental bodies, corporations, and nonprofit organizations.  Sophisticated social innovators and entrepreneurs instinctively understand the complexities involved in advancing social change and managing the politics and personalities involved.  They also see the ways in which many traditional approaches – such as the expectation that any single nonprofit organization of the classic variety (governing board, directive staff, pinpoint mission, and a handful of measurable goals and objectives) – fall short in solving complex public problems.  But what does it take for organizations and institutions resorting to networked action to truly fulfill their shared purposes?

Networks are tough animals to manage.  Our typical default management approaches learned in most day to day organizational practice simply do not cut it when it comes to managing networks.  Drawing from experience and actual case examples, Myrna and I provide concrete ways that groups operating in networks can succeed.  We cover the range of issues people need to consider before involving themselves in networks, when they become network stakeholders, and as they pursue network tasks and activities toward a shared purpose.