Principles for Expansion
Following are some possible guidelines for a GDP membership expansion strategy:
- Organic unless otherwise specifically decided. That
is to say that there will not be a “membership drive”,
but rather the community will develop out of the activities and connections
of the current community.
- Deliberative—the outcome of thoughtful reflection
rather than ad hoc and left open to individual members’ desires to
invite people in or people’s desires to come to community meetings
and participate in its activities. New memberships will be the product
of both non-members’ desire and commitment to become significant
contributors to the community and a decision by the community that
they have significant potential to offer to the community.
- Non-monetary—for the time being, “membership” will
not be associated with fees.
- Individual rather than organizational. Organizations
may be affiliated with GDP as sponsors, funders or activity partners. However,
community membership will be individual.
- Renewable—being declared a “member” is
not a title for life. There should be a periodic renewal process
inviting members to consider whether they remain aligned with the GDP community’s
mission, values, and principles and whether they are sufficiently
active to remain engaged.
Criteria for Expanding GDP Membership
In considering new members of the GDP community, we will hold to the basic
criteria that governed the initial formation of the Launch Meeting group, as
follows:
- Advanced practitioner status. As it expands, GDP
will remain a community of people actively engaged in generative dialogue
work as process experts, dialogue promoters, or issue owners. In
addition, we will seek to have members who are “advanced practitioners” in
the sense that they are widely recognized within and have the ability to
influence their networks.
- Grasp of and openness to the process focus of the GDP. It
is essential that people joining the community understand and endeavor
to practice what we describe as “generative dialogic change processes” and
want to broaden and deepen the field.
- Global orientation. GDP members need also to be
aligned with the global focus of the project, either by working on global
issues or approaching local issues from a global perspective.
- Commitment to engage. Membership in the GDP is
all about active learning and action. Therefore, we are looking for
people who are willing to make a commitment to participate in at least
some of the ongoing activities.
- Diversity. One goal in the expansion of the community
is to increase its diversity, both in demographic terms (age, sex, ethnicity,
sectors, capacities, and experiences) and in terms of greater representation
from the global South. We expect to have a majority of members who are
process experts and at the same time aim to keep a healthy mix of all three
practitioner roles in the membership.
Process for Expanding Membership
- Activity-and recommendation-based. We
will consider as potential community members people who become engaged
in GDP activities through our partnership with an organization of which
they are a part, or who are recommended by current GDP members. Recommendations
for new members may come from GDP staff or from Core Group members.
- Screening by criteria. We will use the criteria defined
to decide whether or not to follow up a recommendation with a conversation. When
information about a potential new member has circulated within the Core
Group and both the staff and the Core Group agree to proceed to
explore the possibility of membership, we will do so as described
below.
- Mutual recognition principle. We will follow the
approach used in our initial community organizing efforts, in which we
adopted the principle of mutual recognition as a basis for deciding whom
to invite to the Community Launch Meeting. In practice, this involves
talking at some length with prospective members about their work and the
GDP and together inquiring into whether there was a good fit. While
we did not invite everyone who seemed a good fit, this was a useful foundation
for making membership decisions.
To put this principle in practice, we will follow a protocol of having someone
from the GDP staff and/or Core Group speak with each prospective community
member. We expect the outcome of this conversation will be agreement
between the two that GDP membership is or is not appropriate, and we will make
the decision on that basis.
Strategy for Expanding Institutional Sponsorship
To better enable us to accomplish our mission, we are actively seeking to
expand the institutional sponsorship of the GDP, in particular to have a broader
global base of support. Our strategy for doing so has two parts:
- Seek funding from sources inside and outside the U.S. While
our initial funding came from the Swedish and Norwegian governments, our
current sources are exclusively U.S.-based. A goal of our fund
raising strategy for 2007 is therefore to expand upon that base.
- Seek institutional sponsorship through the GDP membership. Many
of our community members are based in institutions that are aligned with
the mission of the GDP. They are already supporting this initiative
by virtue of the time commitment people are making. We hope to make
that support more formal by signing them on as sponsoring institutions
whose names will help to lend credibility and weight to our public image
and thereby enhance our ability to have an impact.
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