Have you seen the new publication from Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), Cracking the Network Code? It describes four principles of a network mindset, which is important for grantmakers who are working with and through networks.
I wanted to share with you a few additional resources for evaluating network functioning. The first is an article that Nushina Mir of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Linda Simkin of Action Research Associates, and I co-authored for the Foundation Review. The article, entitled Measuring Dimensions of Network Functioning: The KnowHow2GO Network Survey, appears in Volume 5, issue 2 of the publication. The article describes a network survey that Linda and her colleagues at the Academy for Educational Development created for Lumina Foundation’s KnowHow2GO college access initiative and how we used the tool in the KnowHow2GO evaluation. The network survey, which we think can be adapted for networks in any content area, is available from the National College Access Network (NCAN).
You can read a blog post that Linda and I wrote for the AEA365 blog about the survey and members of the American Evaluation Association (AEA) can watch a recording of an AEA Coffee Break webinar about the survey.
We hope that you find the publications and webinar interesting and helpful for your work building, supporting, or evaluating networks.