M: You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure
There is no better advice than this. Organisations need to be driven by their own data. And this data should be used to assess not only your impact (through something like Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning), but also your organisational efficiency, and your strategy implementation (for example your funding KPIs). And these learnings need to be […]
J: What’s Your Secret Sauce?
Always keep in mind what your organisation’s particular value-add is. When thinking about defining this, don’t focus only on what you do, but on how you do it. Let this guide your communications, but also your decision-making on revenue activities. Being very conscious of your own value, often makes it easier to negotiate in collaborations […]
I: Diversify…Somewhat
Many civic technology organisations will have heard the call to diversify income streams. As seen in the various considerations of risk, this is a really important strategy for ensuring that you are less reliant on single entities whose priorities or strategies may change, and also less politically vulnerable – creating abetter balance of power between […]
H: The Open-Source Conundrum: How to derive value from non-proprietary assets
Many civic technology organisations are embedded in the open movement, though this is not necessarily an innate feature of such entities. An interesting consideration in this regard is how a civic technology entity can create business models around non-proprietary data or even non-proprietary code. Each organisation will have to decide whether to what extent they […]
F: Budget for the Future
Sustainability needs to be in your budget line items. Particularly given the challenges to the types of funds available and limitations to the use of those funds, you should specifically allocate line items that can foster your sustainability. For-profit entities do this through the accumulation of profit, and non-profits should do this through the accumulation […]
B: Reimagine Yourself
While you need a clear sense of who you are as an organisation and what you are good at to ensure your broader success, it is also an important exercise to try and reimagine yourself, even if for pure speculation. If you are a non-profit, what would a for-profit version of your organisation look like? […]
