Creating and Building a Network
Establishing Core Leadership
Starting a network requires a strong leader. There needs to be that cheerleading voice with the knowledge, resources, and skills necessary to bring a group of relative strangers together. This champion must be driven by a passion to see things through, to advocate, coordinate, and mentor. Coordinating a network of individuals who are used to keeping information close-to-the vest -- to convince their leadership that sharing information and resources is a great idea -- is no small task. Without a passionate desire to see the network develop, it would be far too easy for it to slip to the back burner, never reaching its full potential.
What DEN Does
Through its experiences, DEN recommends the following qualities and commitment level for a leader/leadership team:
- Initial leadership needs to come from a larger institution and should have experience in conducting evaluation. There are several reasons why this advice is helpful:
- The leader/leadership team needs to understand that they will be giving more than receiving. The first years will be more about building a community than their own institutional growth.
- The leader/leadership team will need to be the motivators, keep things on track, take the lead to guide and mentor others so they feel more “worthy” of inclusion. Smaller museums may feel overwhelmed in the beginning, possibly out of their element, and seeking guidance and affirmation.
Building a Network
Finding Partners
The first thing your network will need is partner organizations. Participation requires dedication and this should be among the first points of discussion when recruiting members. It is counterproductive to spend a lot of time convincing someone on the fence to participate. If their heart isn't in it, they will most likely never engage fully and may eventually drag down the studies themselves. For this reason it is best to start small with only a few partner organization that hold the same degree of enthusiasm as the leadership. Once a network has successes under their belt, and once some of the obvious logistical kinks are identified and straightened out, participants will then have hard data that will be able to attract and excite other organizations. These new partners will be better prepared to jump in to a successful program and transition into an effective partnership.
What DEN Does
The first impulse may be to toss out an open invitation to see who is interested. DEN, however, discovered that this approach muddied the waters. Because one of the primary outputs was to be pan-institutional studies, it was helpful to have partners with a baseline of similarities in the early stages of network development.
Establishing goals/objectives
New networks will need to identify their own desired goals and outcomes. This will not only help identify partners, it will give partners an umbrella under which they can plan activities. Will the goal be annual pan-institutional or cohort studies? Is professional development at the core of a network? Perhaps both are of equal value? Use the contents of this toolkit to identify potential goals and, as a group, establish a commonality.
What DEN Does
DEN’s goals have been to build a stronger museum evaluation community by increasing personal evaluation capacity building (ECB), enriching evaluation and ECB at our own institutions, and participating in pan-institutional studies with our partners. Similar goals may be the basis for most evaluation networks. The desired outcome is to have a nucleus of knowledge in the Denver area that will, long after the grant cycle is completed, expand to the greater Mountain-Plains region and, eventually, the nation.
Starting a network requires a strong leader. There needs to be that cheerleading voice with the knowledge, resources, and skills necessary to bring a group of relative strangers together. This champion must be driven by a passion to see things through, to advocate, coordinate, and mentor. Coordinating a network of individuals who are used to keeping information close-to-the vest -- to convince their leadership that sharing information and resources is a great idea -- is no small task. Without a passionate desire to see the network develop, it would be far too easy for it to slip to the back burner, never reaching its full potential.
What DEN Does
Through its experiences, DEN recommends the following qualities and commitment level for a leader/leadership team:
- Initial leadership needs to come from a larger institution and should have experience in conducting evaluation. There are several reasons why this advice is helpful:
- It will be more effective for a larger museum to invite other institutions to become partners.
- A larger institution will be approaching from an environment of knowledge and experience, thereby bringing more to the table.
- The institution will be viewed as peers of the other large organizations and benefactors to the smaller.
- Conversely, and mistakenly , a small museum approaching a larger museum may not be viewed as having anything new to share.
- The leader/leadership team needs to understand that they will be giving more than receiving. The first years will be more about building a community than their own institutional growth.
- The leader/leadership team will need to be the motivators, keep things on track, take the lead to guide and mentor others so they feel more “worthy” of inclusion. Smaller museums may feel overwhelmed in the beginning, possibly out of their element, and seeking guidance and affirmation.
Building a Network
Finding Partners
The first thing your network will need is partner organizations. Participation requires dedication and this should be among the first points of discussion when recruiting members. It is counterproductive to spend a lot of time convincing someone on the fence to participate. If their heart isn't in it, they will most likely never engage fully and may eventually drag down the studies themselves. For this reason it is best to start small with only a few partner organization that hold the same degree of enthusiasm as the leadership. Once a network has successes under their belt, and once some of the obvious logistical kinks are identified and straightened out, participants will then have hard data that will be able to attract and excite other organizations. These new partners will be better prepared to jump in to a successful program and transition into an effective partnership.
What DEN Does
The first impulse may be to toss out an open invitation to see who is interested. DEN, however, discovered that this approach muddied the waters. Because one of the primary outputs was to be pan-institutional studies, it was helpful to have partners with a baseline of similarities in the early stages of network development.
- Institution Type. To make its work more relevant, DEN is a network solely for museums. Most museums make excellent partners because they have similar programs: exhibits, events, membership, marketing, and education programs. It is easier to find topics to study together with the same tools or questions. Other types of cultural groups can have difficulty finding similarities. A concert choir, for instance, may be a valid partner for assessing and comparing audience types and perhaps elements of event planning and implementation, however other programs, like exhibits or education programs, may not be shared.
- Time. Do potential partners have the staff or extra time to meet regularly, to attend trainings and committee meetings, and to implement studies? The network’s success is built around members who make, and stick to, their commitments. Lackadaisical attendance or failure to participate in studies as planned will negatively affect the entire network.
- Support from leadership. t may be easy to find someone at the institution who would like to join, however, without the support of their internal leadership, participation may not be successful. (See Building Evaluation Capacity for suggestions on acquiring support from leadership and co-workers.)
Establishing goals/objectives
New networks will need to identify their own desired goals and outcomes. This will not only help identify partners, it will give partners an umbrella under which they can plan activities. Will the goal be annual pan-institutional or cohort studies? Is professional development at the core of a network? Perhaps both are of equal value? Use the contents of this toolkit to identify potential goals and, as a group, establish a commonality.
What DEN Does
DEN’s goals have been to build a stronger museum evaluation community by increasing personal evaluation capacity building (ECB), enriching evaluation and ECB at our own institutions, and participating in pan-institutional studies with our partners. Similar goals may be the basis for most evaluation networks. The desired outcome is to have a nucleus of knowledge in the Denver area that will, long after the grant cycle is completed, expand to the greater Mountain-Plains region and, eventually, the nation.
