Harnessing the Power of Support Networks

 

Pimp My Cause recently teamed up with Bond, an organisation that supports development NGOs to deliver a workshop on Harnessing the Power of Support Networks.

Elizabeth Garland, Programme Development Officer and Marijn van de Geer, Education and Fundraising Officer at the International Refugee Trust talk about their experiences at the recent Pimp My Cause workshop on “Harnessing the Power of Support Networks”.

Pimp My Cause founder Paul Skinner argues that in 2012, our sheer interconnectedness means that people and organisations who prefer to collaborate than to compete stand the best chance of success. And this session was dedicated to building strategic collaborative advantage.

During the workshop 20 or 30 development NGO’s worked interactively to apply a five part creative framework to enable them to re-imagine any aspect of their organisation, new initiative they might be thinking of undertaking, or campaign they would like to develop, as a “platform for participation”, harnessing external talent to spread their message and deliver their results.

Pimp My Cause has increased its connection to international development in 2012 with assignments in humanitarian response and post-crisis re-development and has seen parallels between participatory approaches to marketing and engagement-oriented approaches to development. The workshop was an opportunity to explore some of the themes of the Big Society agenda and to reflect on how these themes can be harnessed to increase the profile of international development organisations.

As Boris Wolf at Bond commented after the event, “The workshop enabled the participants to think creatively about the wider context in which NGOs operate, the wider constituencies that could support their work and how a clear vision of this context and these constituencies could result in improved marketing and impact. Thanks to Paul and other Pimp My Cause staff's skillful facilitation, organisations who struggle to realise the wider opportunities offered by new technologies and social media were supported in developing breakthrough participatory innovation."