CASE 5
I am a Civil Society Organisation
- Agile is king
- Get alignment where you can, and transparency where you can’t
Agile Manifesto
Agile is king
Agile development is a commonly used method in software development, and a strong feature of much civic technology development. This form of development allows for quick pivots and flexible implementation. Thinking about how to allow for that in contract and implementation is vital. As is being prepared for the frequent communication and engagement that is necessary to develop truly great solutions. You are a very central stakeholder in the development process itself.
Get alignment where you can, and transparency where you can’t
Effective collaboration needs to be built on trust, and transparency. Aligning goals between organisations in the early stages of a project goes a long way to advance this. A simple diagram for charting your goal alignments, that you can complete with your partners, can look like this (see right).
It may even be advisable to contain this in project documentation expressly, so all project implementers have sight of it.
PARTNER 1
PARTNER 2
Outline each partner’s project priorities, including initial development priorities
Categorise which of Partner 1 and 2’s priorities align
Categorise which of Partner 1 and 2’s priorities diverge
While we will show there are several factors to consider when deciding what funds to pursue and how to structure your organisation, an important strategic consideration is your own (and your organisation's own) existing social and professional network. Accessing funding is a very social exercise in the sense thatinteraction and trust matter (even when it's suggested that they don't). Thinking about how to first use your own networks better (where trust has already been established) can give you the space to then think about how to diversify your network for the organisation as a later step.
You can look at path deviation as an area of risk which combines reputational and impact risk. Pretty much all funding partnerships present the risk of deviating an organisation from its own strategic path,as it focuses on the outputs for a project that may not strictly align with your own strategy. As noted, "Business goals and impact goals should be kept as aligned as possible, and when they conflict this should be made explicit".
Across funder types, many are still very excited about the potential for technology - both for investment and impact. However, this opportunity may not be a permanent window. As technology becomes mainstream and embedded within individual institutions, the required skills are becoming more normalised. This means leveraging the opportunity while you still can, but also for the future by beginning to define what is specific about the technology skills you offer.
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 of surpluses that gets allocated against future expenditure.These line items should be included across funding and financing proposals and offer security against volatility in the funding and finance environment. It also better enables you to sustain organisationaldevelopment, like employing as opposed to contracting capacity and talent.
