Hi Evaluation Committee,

I thought we had some great discussion around the 3^rd Party Evaluation at the Annual Meeting. For those who weren’t there, the format was that Pete gave a 30 minute presentation of the recommendations. (People received the survey results in their packets.) Then everyone got three dots and put them next to the recommendations that they thought were most pressing. Those are referred to as “votes” below, though they were not exactly voting, just expressing their priorities. Then each steering committee hosted a table discussion on one recommendation, people could go to whichever table had the recommendation they wanted to discuss. They could go to the table for any reason: agree, disagree, wanting clarity, etc. The group took notes on an online wiki.

Below, I’ve shown how many votes (dots) each recommendation got, how many people went to each table, and then I skimmed the notes to try to pull out the concrete suggestions that were made. I have not evaluated the recommendations, just listed them. I’ve also included the URL for the full notes, which contain more of a sense of the questions, disagreements, and overall sentiment at the table. These were just ad hoc discussions, so the participants might say something different if they sat back and thought more about it or dug more into the reason for the recommendation, but I have to say that I was highly encouraged by the level of the discussions. People seemed to be pretty interested in thinking about this, so I think it was a good way to lay the groundwork for any implementation that takes place.

This week Pete, Chinwe, and Isaac are now working on the final version of the report!

1)      26 votes, 10 people at the table: Focus on increasing engagement of the 1/3 of member organizations that are only “somewhat engaged” and “somewhat satisfied.” 

Notes are here: http://piratepad.net/recommendation1

Ideas included:

–Orientations for those new to re-amp (new member org or new staff)

–Track what people respond to in the network, then dig down into core issues

–Better communications system

–broaden WGs beyond tech/policy

–find ways to connect with smaller orgs w/o tying up staff time (ex., have a board member be re-amp contact person)

2)      34 votes, 9 people at the table: Revise the membership approach-tighten performance standards and open up membership to new perspectives.

http://piratepad.net/recommendation2

Ideas included:

–Focus on engagement of current members first, broadening membership second.

–probationary period for new members

–Decide what we want our members to do.

–Be mindful of security

–Determine what level we want members to be at BEFORE they can join: media capability, etc.

–Create individual contracts with member groups

–Note that not everyone accepted this proposal as good to pursue.

3)      30 votes, 11 people at table: Undertake a network-wide review of RE-AMP Goals and Strategies.

http://piratepad.net/recommendation3

–Not a clear relationship b/w GWSAF priorities and long-term goal. That funding is better on short-term goals, but long-term aspiration can get lost.

–Taking another look at goal could open us up to the reality of black carbon, methane, other GHG pollution.

–Need to acknowledge where our goal conflicts with public health (ex., fracking)

— We need to track non-greenhouse gas measures too about how we’re doing with basebuilding etc.  Ask the WG’s to determine what these measures would be. 

–2 people said we don’t interim goals, 9 said yes.

4)      1 vote, no one at table: Governance isn’t broken, so don’t try to fix it.

5)      42 votes, unknown how many at table: Set standards for management/effectiveness of Working Groups and funding processes-and provide the support needed to achieve them.

http://piratepad.net/recommendation5

— Need to try and grab the reigns tightly and suggest that specific groups work on specific items

— need a balance between standards for participation and freedom to participate

-Create a template for the structure of the calls and agenda items that should be covered (standards around the agenda)

— do more than the updates which can dominate the calls and notes – feels somewhat passive.

— Setting a clearly defined goal might create more active participation.

–resolve barriers to participation such as format of the commons

— Create a RE-AMP wide expectation measurement of participation — fair for WG leaders to make demands of groups who sign up for their WG

— use the WGs to build leadership for RE-AMP .. provide opps between WG level and Steering Committee level.

— WGs are very policy oriented – integrate the funding process more into the WGs to get more participate

6)      53 votes, 8 people at the table: Challenge the Foundation Working Group to take its collaboration and commitment to RE-AMP to the next level.

http://piratepad.net/recommendation6

— Could RE-AMP pooled funding mechanisms make 2-year instead of only 1-year grants?  (In addition to encouraging FWG members to make complementary direct grants to RE-AMP members covering at least two years.)

— What is “the next level” and what does that mean for RE-AMP?  The fact that foundations are at the table working collaboratively with NGOs in RE-AMP creates unique potential, but are we taking full advantage of that? 

— RE-AMP funders should think more like the conservative foundations:  longer term, more focused on building capacity, more institutional, etc.

— One outside-the-box idea that got a lot of traction at the table would be to solicit audacious, longer-term (5-10 years?) project ideas from states and/or working groups and then floating the most compelling of those ideas to FWG members and other funders that FWG members know.

— Would FWG be willing to do a webinar for full RE-AMP membership and/or pursue other mechanisms to get information back out to members instead of FWG just being a one-way information gathering body.

7)      37 votes, 19 people at table: Clarify the purpose of Caucuses and tap into their energy by connecting their work to core processes of strategy-making and funding.

http://piratepad.net/recommendation7

— Organizing success is a metric of Caucus success.  Is there value in the Caucuses getting funding by themselves, too?

— In the Working Groups, we could have one paragraph updates on the Caucuses. A brief regular report. 

— Caucuses also serve as a tool for fundraising – does it make sense for caucuses to be a group to be funded

— Need a clear definition of a caucus

— Convene leaders of different caucuses to look at strategy and processes and clearly define what a caucus means and how to function.

— Each WG should have several caucuses of their own that connect directly to them. 

— If WG are RE-AMP priorities, then maybe Caucuses shouldn’t exist. Everyone should just participate in WGs. But then WG calls need to be modified to go beyond policy talk

— Maybe Caucus member should develop technical expertise to engage in WGs. 

— Caucuses could meet less often or as needed to emphasize engagement in other aspects of RE-AMP. 

— Maybe need a quarterly or occasional events that connect RE-AMP member groups across WG silos. 

— Caucuses should not draw away funding from the network’s stated priority.

— Challenge the funders to be more clear about what they will fund and how it will affect Caucuses. 

— Frame proposals not around policy issues but rather, “how will your proposal build power in our state / build the base of support…” 

— If some Caucuses are not relevant or inactive, they should be disbanded

8)      7 votes, 6 at table: Revamp the Learning & Progress Center so it is better aligned with the network model

http://piratepad.net/recommendation8

— Use other Commons tools like the blog and email to give a teaser that could drive people to a L&P entry.

— Need to work out question of preserving the ability to  share and search for information.

— What about having a conversation thread or discussion forum on the  L&P enyries — people could ask questions or leave comments that the  author could respond to.

— could be a home for learning that does not  occur in a working group.

— What if we had a learning process that  reflected the way we do things as a network. Richer process that has  multiple types of groups involved — informed by reports on the system  but also have other inputs.

— Changing the idea of how we try to facilitate and drive learning.  Instaed of trying to get people to go on the L&P themselves or to  contract it out to Gail, let’s do learning as a network. Gail still does  the analysis, but she brings it back to a group.

— Another part of our network model is offering multiple ways for people  to learn – some people like reports others want to just have a  conversation.

9)      15 votes, unknown number at table: Continue to steadily improve the value of other Shared Resources but subject them to rigorous performance and network discipline.

http://piratepad.net/recommendation9

— Need for mechanism to share training models, connect people within network by expertise

— Setting up guidance committees for each of the shared resources. Media Center, Commons. Need to bolster those and open them up to more people. A group of users informing coordinator/manager of resource on potential improvements

— Compare to other networks performing similar functions. 

— Measure how much users are engaged in similar tools in other organizations. We look at those measures but we don’t compare them with anything.

— Need measurables. numbers of trainings, # of ppl participating. 

— What does “network discipline” mean? Expectations of members. 

10)  13 votes, 10 at the table: Develop a network scorecard to measure and monitor RE-AMP’s performance on an annual basis.

http://piratepad.net/recommendation10

— Survey ourselves oftern to make sure that people feel engaged.  Measure how people feel.  We don’t need to spend a lot of time on this, just take the pulse.

–Metrics are – how are we building power as a network

• what constituencies have we engaged – how powerful are they
• what sector/amount of the general public have we engaged
• how many and what kinds of business partners have we engaged

–Another way to put metrics together:

• metrics that prime time proposals are funded
• how are these going to move us toward 80%?
• This would avoid getting #’s that maybe don’t help us get there
• what sort of political power would we need as a network to achieve the policies to get to 80%?
• Outcomes
• Power mapping

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Gail Francis
L&P Analyst
RE-AMP
(715) 945-2164
Ojibwa, WI
ampanalyst@gmail.com
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