We summarise below the main points raised in response to the Josien’s original questions on the KM4Dev list( http://tinyurl.com/35bhvr ). Any additional comments are very welcome, especially on the issues relating to long term CoP support raised by various people and in particular Carl Jackson’s suggestion about long term annuity (10 – 15 years).
*************************************
Many of the contributors to the discussion trace a connection between funding and time. Carl Jackson considers the “funding curse or cure” issue at the emergence of a CoP as being subject to the question “are we as a facilitators of a possible community time rich or time poor?” He suggests that “if the answer is time rich then funding may be a curse, if time poor it could be a cure (but like many things needed – still best in moderation)”
Carl goes on to propose an interesting approach to community funding: “if someone wants to invest in a community then a long term financial vehicle would be better than an annual budget, more like an annuity that would provide modest funds for say 10-15 years (do any CoPs live longer than this naturally?) and then the original capital is returned to the funder.”
Also on the question of time, Beverly Trayner underscores the importance of “budgeting for the management and coaching of potential users in the design process” and this leads Neil Pakenham-Walsh to suggest that Beverly’s original design principal be amended to:
* consult potential users about the design of the community, and include them in the design process – as far as possible within budgetary and human resource constraints.
Neil goes on to give the example of the 4 health-related communities of purpose he has been involved with where large Dgroups have been cultivated using a middle ground approach to consultation/ exclusion in their design and setting up. http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/article/viewFile/96/222
Still on the question of funding and time, Riff Fullan argues that “even CoPs with no formal funding are in fact funded insofar as the tools and the time and energy members put into the community (or at least a portion of those things) are themselves funded.” He emphasizes that “the challenge – and it is a big one – is to find strategic ways to collectively direct the funding *and* the energy such that, at a given historical point in the life of a CoP, the exchanges around activities, dialogues, information, knowledge, etc., that need the greatest support get such support.” Riff would prefer to see the question of life after funding in the context of the more general question of “how to sustain life, and the answer is not always the same for different CoPs, or even for the same CoP at a different point in time.”
Tony Pryor, meanwhile, considers the most appropriate type of community structure and agrees with Josien’s view of “some sort of spectrum from a pure COP to a task force, etc., and some type of evolution/flow between the two” and believes that “thinking of COPs in a “pure” form – voluntary, self-governed and essentially nonformal – is a bit narrowing.” Tony, agreeing with Nancy’s comments on sustainability, goes on to add that “Not everything deserves to be/should be continued forever. Thinking of sustainability only in financial terms can get one in trouble.”
As an example of supported purpose-built CoP , Tony cites the example of KM4Dev where “it can wander and roam, but it does have some parameters defined by the ‘host’ Does that somehow not make it a COP?”. He sees the value of hosting in a variety of contexts: “And the ‘host’ could be an NGO, a govt entity, a for profit firm – it makes no difference. Having a hosted CoP does not ‘spoil’ the CoP, to my mind.”
Bill Williams
