“Think globally, act locally.” It’s a phrase that has been used in many contexts, but commonly conveys the desire to change the world one community at a time. This expression popped into my head when I was reading about some global initiatives that are harnessing creativity, supporting its growth and facilitating its distribution in really innovative ways.
When I read about what they are doing, I thought to myself, “we’re on the right track!” Looking back at Anil’s thoughts on Open Architecture, Amanda’s writing on information sharing and transparency, I can’t help but come to that conclusion. This isn’t meant as a pat on our own backs but rather to continue the dialogue on how we deliver programming and how we could do it better.
Thinking Globally
Take NetHope [www.nethope.org], for example. Among other projects, they have an Innovation for Development (I4D) program which seeks to extend existing best practices and scale solutions for broader impact in developing countries. If we distill this approach down to a local level, the theory is the same: how do we aggregate existing best practices within the non-profit sector to better serve our community? And how do we then share theselearnings with the thousands of other charitable organizations? For us (Framework), one way is our use of smart technology (primarily web-based) to share how we operate with the world. That is, adapting existing technology to our needs and then letting everyone else know why and how we did it.
Another element of NetHope’s work is building telecommunications infrastructure where they either don’t exist or have been destroyed as a result of natural disasters. The idea being that in both cases the infrastructure will enableNGOs to collaborate, share information and better aid people and communities in need. This idea that we can better deliver services if we can collaborate and communicate is fundamental to our work. You can read about our collaboration strategy in an earlier post so I won’t get into it here, but essentially where NetHope’s connectivity initiatives help build a technical workforce in remote areas of Africa, for example, our infrastructure allows us to efficiently collaborate with partners and stakeholders across Canada.
Finally, The Rockefeller Foundation, a huge granting body in the United States, has identified the need for open and user-driven innovation models to solve big issues like poverty and global warming through their “Advancing Innovation Processes to Solve Social Problems” stream of funding. There are a lot of great questions that came to mind from reading their Key Outcomes:
- How do we foster partnerships with our many stakeholders in order to better deliver Timeraiser programming?
- What new technology will help us enable our users contribute to our processes?
- How can we quickly capitalize on a creative idea from a volunteer in Calgary?
- And finally, when we think we have a great piece of knowledge, how do we share it with other like-minded NGOs?
Acting Locally
There are a lot of interesting ideas and models out there about how to collaborate, use technology and share best practices. Some have big outcomes like saving humanity and saving our planet. But how they are applied is certainly relevant and transferable to organizations working on local issues like housing in Vancouver’s East End, the development of green spaces in Toronto, securing healthy food for poor families in Hamilton, or planning a Timeraiser in Calgary!
