Social Franchising Commons, a project of Global Gain, Catalytic Communities, and Nurture

"Nearly every problem has been solved by someone, somewhere. The frustration is that we can't seem to replicate them anywhere else." ~ Bill Clinton

Purpose: To enable social franchising through the use of the innovative adaptive blueprinting guide with successful solutions listed in the community solutions database and a community of support and tools to enable growth and social development.

Problem: Knowledge of successful solutions is not being effectievly shared. Even so, sharing knowledge about "what works" is not enough, even if provided in a well defined database or website. Currently the social sector not only lacks the tools, more importantly, we lack the process and environment for sharing our "wheel" ideas in ways that uplift communities anywhere.

Replication & Scalability depend upon documentation, connecting resources & talent, and cultivating appropriate capacities. We offer a new paradigm, process, and invitational space to facilitate social adaptive replication of solutions.

Background: Global Gain evolved the Adaptive Blueprinting Guide to help social entrepreneurs with successful organizations and projects document those projects for sharing with other community leaders. Successful workshops have been held with Ashoka India, who has agreed to partner with Global Gain to continue development of the Adaptive Blueprinting process. Catalytic Communities, for five years, has collected successful community-based solutions from around the world in their community solutions database. Nurture offers facilitation and partnership as an organizational development consultancy working to uplift social benefit organizations and the field of social benefit. Nurture has long supported both Catalytic Communities and Global Gain and leads on nurturing the partnerhsip between them and with the larger social benefit network.

Proposed Initiative:

1. Community Solutions Database: Catalytic Communities maintains a "Community Solutions Database" with content generated directly by grassroots community organizers. We are evolving the Community Solutions Database as a web resource and platform for documenting and disseminating solutions, connecting resources, and supporting the adaptation and replication of what works.
2. Adaptive Blueprinting (AB) Guide: AB is a step-by-step process that organizations with proven models can use to guide them through the process of scaling-out-- a strategy for widening impact through partner collaboration. The AB Guide is a “living, breathing” document that will be continuously edited and improved upon wiki-style through tools we aim to create.
   
3. Blueprint Guide Creator: A crucial part of being able to successfully spread a model involves carefully documenting the essence of what makes the model work. As a result, we aim to create a set of simple, browser-based tools that will enable organizations to create their own Blueprint Guides to share with partners interested in replicating their models. A powerful aspect of these tools is that they will walk organizations step-by-step through the process of creating a guide that utilizes best practices in knowledge transmission. The result is that readers will find the guide easy to understand and utilize (think of Dummies Books and Idiot Guides).
4. Tools for online collaboration: Organizations choosing to go through the AB process or replicate a community solution will require extensive collaboration with a core group of like-minded partners. As a result, we aim to build a set of tools that strikes the perfect balance between structure and flexibility. Adequate structure is required in order to make the collaboration process organized and systematic, yet a certain degree of flexibility is also essential so that the tools don’t risk stifling innovation and adaptation.

Partnership benefits:

1. A social entrepreneurial support organization, such as Ashoka, can benefit, for example, by helping successful innovators develop their model and share it with others, expanding visibility of the work fellows are doing, and growing the social sector conversation. Ashoka India is already partnering with us.
2. Investors in social entrepreneurial organizations, from Kiva to Investor’s Circle, for example, can source successful models for funding and replication and assist in gaining visibility for those models.
3. University programs, such as the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford, can connect to on the ground practices by multiple filters, allowing students to study and participate in innovative social organizations.

Conclusion: Supplying tools, process, and structures for collaboration will uplift and catalyze the citizen sector. We seek funding for the initial development of a mashable database of social sector solutions for use by partnering organizations and the social sector at large. Additionally, we seeks support for the community space and adaptive blueprinting tools. For 2008, we seek challenge funds of $85,000 to match the contributions made by Global Gain, Catalytic Communities, Ashoka India, and Nurture.