Social-Impact Network

RecoveryPeople is structured as a social-impact network, which refers to a system of interconnected people and organizations that work together to solve complex problems and impact social change. In 2014, RecoveryPeople won our first in a series of Recovery Community Service Providers (RCSP) Statewide Network (SN) grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). As envisioned by SAMHSA, statewide networks:

empower the voice of lived experience to participate in program planning and policy development;
strengthen recovery community organizations and recovery stakeholders as key partners in the delivery of services; and
underscore the relevance and appropriateness of recovery support services (RSS) and peer recovery support services (PRSS) as fundamental fixtures on the Recovery Oriented Systems of Care (ROSC) landscape.

What It Is Not

To better understand a social-impact network, some may find it help to explore what it is not:

Social Media vs Social-impact Networks - Social Media (Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube…) are powerful tools to link individuals, but they are not social-impact networks themselves. Social-impact networks often use social media to communicate and connect.
Coalitions vs Social-impact Networks - Coalitions tend to have specific objectives and a controlled agenda. In contrast, networks have a broader vision and agendas that are developed and driven by members overtime. Coalitions may be a part of a social-impact network, and in fact, RecoveryPeople engages many individuals and organizations through coalitions.
Associations vs Social-impact Networks - The membership aspect of an association or cooperative looks like a network, but the purpose of an association is to benefit its membership whereas the purpose of a social-impact network is to impact social issues. Associations may be a part of a social-impact network to further their mission.
Professional Networking Group vs Social-impact Network - Like minded professionals and industry sectors often host and attend networking group events to raise their brand, market their products, explore business partnership and share industry news. Professional networking groups are a great way of forwarding business agendas where the purpose of a social-impact network is to impact social issues.

Performance Metrics

The capacity, or connectivity of a network, is measured in terms of its:

depth - the number of participants, partners and networks
scope - the quality of relationships
breath - the diversity of the network

Participants Partners Network of Networks

Participants

Within the network, Participants are people who have been engaged, educated or empowered through one of our programs. Participants are individuals with a history of substance use and related mental health challenges, affected family members and/or allies.

Partners

Network of Networks

RecoveryPeople views our network as a network of networks. The recovery landscape is already dotted with several networks (initiatives, associations, communities and systems) each doing great work. However, these networks tend to be siloed by geography, funding, and/or areas of focus. The result is a disjointed and uncoordinated movement. To impact an issue as complex as addiction, the recovery community must work together, which is why RecoveryPeople weaves across networks.

Learn more about commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Social Norms

Reinforcing (if not over communicating) how the network works and how members can contribute is an important part of the culture. The following social norms were developed through a participatory process in 2016.

Shared Purpose

Play Nice

Be Action-Oriented

Give to Get

Mutual aid and reciprocal responsibility are recovery concepts that translate to building a healthy social-impact network. Networks are a gift economy and reward generosity, according to former Wired executive editor Kevin Kelly. In Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact, Plastrik et. al. highlights that being a “good citizen” of the network becomes highly personal and important. There are several ways to contribute to the network including:

Connect People - Actively connect individuals within the network and/or with individuals outside the network who should know each other, would be willing to help each other or share a common interest. This includes connecting yourself with others. More than just the number of connections, you can focus on cultivating deeper relationships across the network.
Share Knowledge - Solving large, complex problems requires diverse perspectives and knowledge. Offering knowledge that others in the network would find valuable is an important way of contribution.
Share Skills - Everyone brings gifts and talents to the table. Contributing your skills to the network along with everyone else’s contributions promotes sustainability and delivers greater overall impact.
Share Resources - Leveraging collective resources (e.g. time, funding, infrastructure, equipment) to support the network and fellow members generate a greater social-impact than what can be done separately. Crowdsourcing.

Be Inclusive

The network should reflect the diversity of the recovery community:

Population - Addiction knows no demographic boundaries and efforts to be inclusive of all populations in recovery should be made.
Family and friends - Peers are not the only one’s impacted by addiction. Family members and friends often have their own recovery process regardless of the recovery status of their loved one. This includes recovery and support around anxiety, grief and/or relationship dynamics.
Recovery Pathways - Individuals most often identify with their own path to recovery, but can be accepting of other people’s pathways even when they may not be familiar. There are numerous secular, spiritual and religious mutual aid societies. Some people may have never gone to treatment whereas others have had multiple addiction treatment exposures and/or utilized psychological or cognitive behavioral therapy. Some may have used Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Some may have initiated their recovery in the criminal justice system or while experiencing homelessness. Some have used a harm reduction approach or medication assisted treatment. Some have chosen a recovery ministry. Regardless of which pathway or combination of pathways, the common bond is addiction recovery.
Organizations - In this context, “organization” is used broadly to include incorporated and unincorporated and/or for-profit and not-for-profit businesses such as associations, societies, clubs, ministries, roundtable, collaboratives… If the entity has bylaw or a mission statement that qualifies it as a recovery organization and it has a leadership structure that can agree to the terms and conditions on behalf of the organization, it should be welcomed.

Work Together

Network consultant June Holley suggests, “Make your motto, ‘No one works alone.” As ideas surface, connect individuals and establish working groups to explore collaboration. Decisions are ideally made together, according to Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact. Examples of working together to make decisions include:

Community - Through consensus building amongst members
Emergence - Through the actions of network members
Democracy - Through majority vote
Impositions - In comply with ethical, legal or funding boundaries

Weave the Network

Value of Networks

Ultimately the purpose of a social-impact network is to add value, and it does so at multiple levels:

Individuals

Organizations

Improved performance - Ultimately, the value to organizations is improved performance gained through their peers participating in the network or through direct connections in the network. For example, Sober Recreation Committee of Austin co-founder Lew Mickley reported a significant increase in the number of teams registering for their Softball Tournaments as a direct result of participating in the local network collaborative.
Retain and build leadership capacity - Finding, developing, and retaining peer leaders and workers is a challenge in the recovery space. The network helps develop and identify a pipeline of leaders that increases performance and cultivates peer leader to peer leader support, which decreases burnout and increases retention.
Communicate broader and faster - By increasing the number of connections across organizations, communities, and focus areas, the network decreases the degree of separation between members and networks. The ability to access or distribute information becomes significantly more efficient by bypassing bottlenecks and rippling further across the net.
Accomplish goals that cannot be achieved alone - A social-impact network can assemble novel and flexible combinations of human talent that would be difficult or impossible to pull together in a single organization (Plastrik et. Al.)
Increase goodwill and credibility - Goodwill is for an organization what reputation is for a person. Supporting the network is a cost effective means of gaining positive recognition and credibility across the network.

Systems

Law of Increasing Returns - In economics, we often talk about the Law of Diminishing Return in which every additional unit of investment yields less than proportional returns. This diminished rate of returns slows growth down. In contrast, the Law of Increasing Returns is where every additional unit (people and connection) within a social-impact network generates more than proportionate returns and fuels growth.
Rapid, scalable growth - large-scale capacities for public-policy advocacy favor a network mod
Synergy - the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects
Community of Consequence - Grassroots movement that can drive systems change

Social-Impact Network

Performance Metrics

Social Norms

Value of Networks

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