Summary of the discussion ~ Life of CoPs in Development contexts after funding ends

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).

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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

Life after funding

“Life after funding” is the first focus on Cops for Dev. discussion

Many communities are externally funded. Clearly, people have various opinions about this. Among the 5 interviewees we find a range of opinions:

• Communities never work unless 100% on their own power

• Communities of course must start from the need/demand on members’ side, but looking for funding for specific activities might help strengthen and develop the community and give facilitators AND members more space to work for the community

• Communities that started with funding and support from outside (like KM4dev) can give good results.

But irrespective of opinions about desirability of funding in the first place, it remains a fact that many communities ARE externally funded. The authors asked the following question:

How can you build in capacity so that these communities can transition (from one-off) and continue to function autonomously after the life-span of the funded activity is over?

And this is some of what they answered:

Beverly Trayner comes with very useful principles during cop design:

* consult potential users about the design of the community, and
include them in the design process;
* use a platform and or tools/technology that can easily be
taken over by someone from within the community when the
funding runs out;
* keep the tools simple at entry level with the option of more
functions as people become more familiar with it;
* use of aggregators so pages stay updated without anyone doing
anything;
* support a community of practice of technology stewards within
the larger community who can support their own
community/group/NGO.

Summarizing  Joitske Hulsebosch’s reaction and adding to the list:

* Be very careful in choosing when to foster a CoP or not;
Include people who are passionate to learn in the domain
* Careful planning and design: spontaneous birth is an illusion
* natural hosts; an organization or institution who can be a
natural host or convener for the CoP
* Be clear beforehand what your intentions are getting support
for it. It’s important that the sponsor is prepared to be
flexible and support the CoP till it’s viable.

Lucie Lamoureux mentions how funding of specific projects can help
to partially fund a community (and strengthen it). Especially if
implemented by the community as a community activity.

Nancy White distinguishes at least 3 ways into this: “donor driven
or community driven or both. In my experience donors talk about
sustainability, but don’t really know how to support that from a
process standpoint and rarely seem to want the longer engagement to
mentor the process. (…)
Now, the second and third ways in – community led. If the “funded
program” is designed for life after funding, ownership and
participation in that design should logically include the community,
NOT JUST the donor. So maybe we turn some of our design expectations
over a bit and do more participatory design. It is changing the
fundamental relationship between funders and communities. Big big
change.”

Ueli Scheuermeier is soundly skeptical: “I usually say, that if a
community can’t get their act together and organize themselves to
keep going, then it’s a dud in the first place. Usually there needs
to be a core of at least 3-4 people who just keep digging away at it
and continue to exchange. Others will watch and join. The argument
that this all costs I feel is totally wrong: I have been highly
active in communities that simply got themselves a Yahoo Group, and
that’s that. To be blunt: The biggest problem for continued
autonomous functioning after the initial funding ceases is the
initial funding. If I were a funding agency trying to support the
emergence of CoPs, I would only fund something that is already
working on a shoestring. But more often than not, funding agencies
kind of initiate CoPs with the hope that they will continue. Wrong:
What funding agencies initiate is usually what is on their own agenda.”

“Ah, here’s a variant: Guys in a funding agency may feel they need
to get something going for themselves. Fine, then let’s not let them
project this outside and launch a CoP to take care of that. They
should be organizing their own little informal CoP among themselves
to take care of the issue, and that may eventually become more
formalized.”

Also see on this issue: -a blogpost on lessons learned about “life after funding” <http://cops4dev.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/notes-on-issue-1-life-after-funding/> from case studies from CoPs cultivated in the MENA region, other by CARE, and ICT4D by IICD. (by the three authors, Ruter, Mantey and Williams)

Questions to all readers:

* -What would YOU add to (or strike out of) the tentative list
started by Bev and Joitske of “design principles for autonomous
communities”?
* -Do you agree with the perspective of funders (donors AND ngo’s)
as pursuing their own agendas and not very capable of long term
guidance of communities? Why (not)?
* -How would you suggest to “change the fundamental relationship
between funders and communities” ?

Notes on Issue 1 Life after funding

(fragment from main report, by Mantey, Rüter, Williams)

Lessons learned from an ICT4D community of trainers

• Pay attention to existing networks and links, internationally and locally, as people indicated that there are a large number of these professional networks already.
• Developing of a clear sense of local control and focus on the side of actual practice is extremely important and will depend on the legitimacy of community members who take on the leadership role. Development of such capacities requires culturally sensitive facilitation.
• Just as the success of a community of practice depends on a certain amount of passion for its domain, supporting communities requires a level of commitment and constancy because the community has to grow fairly organically. The timeframe which must be kept in mind is quite long, bearing in mind the diversity of trainers’ practices involved.

(IICD,  http://www.ftpiicd.org/files/research/briefs/brief_CoP.pdf)

CoPs for development of the MENA region

• A general advice to donors could be to assess the potential of (emerging) CoPs in terms of sustainability, before deciding to support them. During support, donors should encourage activities that increase the sustainability of the community.
• Donors are e.g. recommended to “support CoPs to build partnerships with like-minded networks globally.”
• And to “Identify the organic need for focused CoPs. Creating supply-driven networks will usually lead to failure. […] An organic need for networking is another critical success factor. While donors can encourage and facilitate existing networking efforts in the region, they should not get involved where demand for networking activities is not clear.”
• A limited understanding of what a CoP entails can significantly affect the relevance and quality of CoP activities. [...] As a result of this limited understanding, CoPs can be easily mistaken for short-term activities, meaning CoPs may get started but that they will not last. Donors who are thinking of supporting CoP activities should be aware of this, and adjust their expectations accordingly.
• The most important issue determining a CoP’s success is leadership. A committed, energetic leadership is vital. For potential donors, it is important to gauge the commitment/passion of leaders before deciding to support a CoP.
• Diversifying funding sources has been another important lesson identified by the Sustainable Livelihoods CoP which has managed to build partnerships with donors and with research institutions. By ensuring that the sources of funds are diversified, they have managed to guarantee better chances of sustainability and continuity.
• The other two CoPs invested more modestly in face-to-face meetings, attempting to optimize their funding by arranging side meetings during larger events. Funding was thus maximized, and they were able to build on the content being discussed at the larger events as a means of generating content for the CoP. This appeared to be quite a successful strategy.

(Johnson E.C. and R. Khalidi, 2005 – Communities of Practice for Development in the Middle East and North Africa – KM4D Journal 1(1). http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/article/view/15  )

Communities of Practice at CARE

• CARE doesn’t fund its communities: “Given that CARE country offices operate under very tight resource constraints, a community can be successful only if it can demonstrate that it can add immediate value to areas of strategic importance to CARE. Moreover, CARE does not have the resources for dedicated facilitation of communities. Therefore, CoPs at CARE need to consist of self-motivated individuals, who are passionate about their area of expertise, and are committed to the growth of knowledge in strategic areas of interest to CARE. Thus the formation of communities at CARE is an active choice by members from different country offices who want to make the time to engage with each other because they perceive the value of sharing knowledge for themselves and for the organization.”
• CARE created a “5-step model called the 5-D model to help potential community members design viable communities at CARE and manage them through their life cycle.” The model is described in the article (source below).

(KM4D Journal 1(1):

Ramaswamy, R., G. Storer and R. Van Zeyl. 2005. Designing sustainable communities of practice at CARE. http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/article/viewFile/16/36