Communities are built on connections. Through their connections members share knowledge, resources and care for one another. What’s flowing through these connections is what generates value for network members.

Spontaneous connections between groups of people tend to emerge very slowly, or not at all. Network weaving is the practice of actively building a network by intentionally facilitating connections between network members.

Designing network convenings is about shaping a context that enables people to connect, coordinate, and collaborate.

Taking a relational approach to engagement requires thinking from the participants’ perspective. Rather than approach the design and facilitation as a checklist of topics and tasks to run through, we want to consider the overall experience of those attending. How will participants interact with each other, with the space, with you, and with the content in ways that are meaningful to them?

This guide focuses on experience design and facilitation approaches that promote agency, invite collaboration, and cultivate emergent outcomes in service of your network’s purpose.

Building any culture is an intentional process of encouraging ways of being and doing that serve the group and its purpose. In networks, culture creates a context for member interactions, and the quality of member interactions plays an important role in what emerges in the network.

This guide focuses on approaches and activities that help you curate the atmosphere, attitudes and actions that can hold your network together in pursuit of its purpose over time.

In times of uncertainty and rapid change we experience an urgency to act, yet many ways of engaging social challenges approach problem solving with the same mindsets that created the trouble we are facing.

Networks offer a different approach. A way of shaping systems through the way we connect, coordinate and collaborate. Yet to cultivate healthy networks that are capable of generating impact, we have to be able to make a compelling case that inspires engagement and contributions.

This guide focuses on powerfully communicating the value of a network approach to members, funders and other partners.

Over time, healthy networks use their relationships and collective intelligence to shape longer-term changes in how our social systems are organised and operated in pursuit of the network’s purpose.

Evaluating your network’s health allows you to identify areas of strength as well as areas of untapped potential. The ongoing collection of member data and feedback is what helps network coordinators assess the network’s current state of health as well as identify what aspects of its leadership, infrastructure or activities might require additional attention and nurturing.

This guide focuses on how you can use data to reflect network health, illustrate network evolution and focus limited coordination time to best support the network and its journey toward impact over time.

Choosing activities and approaches to help stimulate engagement within your network can sometimes be a tough decision. There’s no right or wrong answer, only context and opportunity.

It’s easy to find loads of great resources for meeting facilitators with ideas about what you can do with a group in a meeting. We hope that this guide can provide specific tips on when, where, and how to effectively facilitate different types of activities with and for your network members.