I know firsthand the transformative power of networks. My wife, Daphine Namara, and I are both nonprofit leaders from Uganda, driven by a shared passion to make a difference in our communities. Yet our journeys couldn’t be more different.
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Daphine, a medical doctor and health care entrepreneur, runs a community clinic for low-income and elderly patients without insurance in rural Uganda. Despite collaborations with influential institutions, her enterprise struggles to secure the resources needed to expand. These collaborations, while valuable, are often temporary and don’t provide sustained support for long-term growth.
My experience diverges from hers in many ways. Through networks developed and supported by organizations such as Global Health Corps, Acumen, the Aspen Institute, and Teach for All, I’ve accessed not just funding but also training, mentorship, and lifelong relationships that have accelerated my reach and impact in the nonprofit world. The difference? Not talent or dedication but an introduction to networks that share ideas, facilitate learning, and open doors to opportunity.
My journey began in rural southwestern Uganda, where, by age 10, I had lost most of my family to AIDS and other preventable diseases. At 11, I was on the verge of dropping out of school to join one of many rebel groups in Uganda. My prospects were grim.
But through an unlikely series of events and supportive networks, including my church, I secured a high school scholarship and eventually sponsorship by an American family for a college education in the United States. Today, the organization I co-founded, Teach for Uganda, has helped nearly 75,000 students attain literacy, numeracy, and digital skills and developed more than 500 young leaders in some of Uganda’s most underserved communities. Several now lead their own educational programs or work on major global projects.
None of that would have been possible without the help of networks — individuals and organizations working together to solve a problem by sharing knowledge, skills, and resources.
Why Networks Matter
The power of networks is something we intuitively understand in many aspects of life. As human beings, we thrive through our connections with others. When seeking a job, choosing a school for our kids, or even finding a reliable mechanic, we instinctively turn to our networks. Writer Brené Brown notes that “we don’t derive strength from our rugged individualism but rather from our collective ability to plan, communicate, and work together.”
Each new connection brings individual knowledge, resources, and its own network of contacts, creating a ripple effect of opportunities and insights. I’ve seen this up close through my work with Teach for All, a global network of more than 60 independent, locally led nonprofits focused on helping all children fulfill their potential.
In September 2019, for example, I received an invitation from Teach for All to participate as a panelist at a United Nations General Assembly meeting, which led to coffee afterward with a representative from Boston Consulting Group, a Teach for All partner. Our conversation focused on the need for a strategy to expand Teach for Uganda, which in turn led to an introduction to the firm’s lead partner in Nairobi. Those connections ultimately opened new communications channels and funding opportunities and helped us dramatically expand our reach from serving 20,000 students in 2020 to almost 75,000 by the end of 2023.
Bolstering networks is especially critical at a time when philanthropy has committed to investing in local organizations and leaders who best understand the challenges, and potential solutions, for their communities. Networks make it far more likely that these leaders will succeed by ensuring they have the knowledge and resources to make a lasting difference.
In Teach for All’s case, while the local context for each of the network’s more than 60 organizations is unique, the issues facing the marginalized students they serve are similar. That means ideas for addressing problems are often shareable, and all can benefit from educational experiences focused on tackling complex challenges. Teach for All also offers shared resources in areas such as fundraising, technology, public relations, and teacher and leadership development.
In the United States, networks like StriveTogether Cradle to Career Network take a similar approach, including providing coaching and training and sharing ideas among network members. Backed by major grant makers such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the network connects 70 communities to improve economic mobility for young people. Research shows that this effort has significantly boosted high school graduation rates.
How Funders Can Help
Funders can take several steps to support the growth of such networks, starting with providing long-term investment and flexible funding to nurture leaders and build capacity. Committing to such a funding strategy requires a belief in the potential of people and organizations to learn over time and a recognition that peer learning opportunities and leadership development will accelerate that process.
Beyond funding, foundations can actively engage with and contribute to the networks they support. This includes taking part in educational activities alongside network members, including community visits and workshops. This will deepen grant makers’ understanding of the problems communities are contending with and strengthen their relationships with grantees. Such an approach can, in turn, inform funding strategies and help foundations identify the best ways to support and develop network organizations.
The Segal Family Foundation, which funds nonprofits in Africa, offers a good model for how this is done. In addition to providing flexible long-term funding to all grantees, it actively connects them with peer organizations and like-minded grant makers to share knowledge, experiences, and resources, including professional development and mentorship.
The results of such investments may be harder to measure than one-off funding for programs. But support of this kind has a multiplier effect that can lead to far more sustainable social change. That’s why an investment in my leadership, a single Ugandan local entrepreneur, became an investment in 500 passionate young Ugandan leaders and teachers reaching almost 75,000 children every day in their classrooms.
This month, the United Nations General Assembly is bringing together philanthropic, nonprofit, and government leaders to address the world’s most pressing problems, including poverty, education inequity, and climate change. The power of networks should be central to those discussions.
The complexity of the deepening crises across the globe defies reductive technical solutions. To create lasting reforms, we must cultivate the deep relationships and connections that spur new and innovative ideas for fixing very old problems.