A Loup Case Study: PASE and Hive NYC
How Loup helps networks listen to each other, strengthen themselves, and work together.
The value of human networks is difficult to track and articulate. And the longer a network exists, the more distributed its links become, which even further complicates our ability to document the impacts of connections and interactions over time — and to tell the network’s larger story. When explaining why investing in networks matters, it can be tempting to focus on the elements that are easiest to count, like the number of members or programs or trainings delivered. Yet this obsession to quantify and point to something that feels concrete misses the key element about the resilience, persistence, and importance of humans in networks: Relationships win. Always.
Starting in the spring of 2018, Loup worked with the Partnership for After School Education (PASE), a child-focused organization — and itself a diverse and vibrant network — that promotes and supports after school programs, particularly those for young people from under-served communities. In January 2018, PASE accepted a challenging task: to support an established network of digital learning practitioners in their transition away from a foundation-supported model to an independent, member-led network.
In existence for more than a decade, this network — the Hive NYC Learning Network — had some history. Composed of youth educators from across NYC, it was (and remains) a valuable professional and personal development association. Members shared a sense of connectivity, a sense of groundedness in their work, and a sense of purpose, all of which are really important in people’s day-to-day lives.
Since its launch in 2009, Hive NYC was incubated and managed through larger organizations like the New York Community Trust, the MacArthur Foundation, and — at the time of this work — the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla staffed Hive NYC and provided support like facilitation, professional branding and communications, and regular network-boosting activities. All of this was enormously helpful as this type of work requires a lot of time and resources.
But after some shifts to its own strategy, the Mozilla Foundation decided to sunset their financial support to the Hive networks it had incubated; the model had expanded from New York into a loose federation that included Chicago, Toronto, Austin, Pittsburgh, and Chattanooga. Mozilla asked PASE to manage Hive NYC for a year, to facilitate its transition. PASE helped to guide a process to explore questions like: Are we going to sunset the network? What will Hive look like? The future of the network was really unclear.
This work helped elevate and celebrate Hive’s achievements — and it reminded people of what they had made together and why it was important to them. It helped people say, “We can build on this. There are simple, low-cost, DIY ways to continue doing this work. It doesn’t have to be fancy.” It gave a framework and a platform for them to see everything they had accomplished and everything that could be leveraged. This in turn gave a sense of possibility, agency, and self efficacy, so that folks felt confident to carry it on.
Regardless of whether Hive continued or not, we knew it was important to document the history of the network, to capture the learning. We felt this would be valuable to Hive, if it was to move forward, as well as to other groups who could learn from their work. — Delia Kim, PASE Program Director
PASE’s challenge: to help Hive figure out how to proceed with minimal resources. Despite no longer having access to Mozilla’s resources, PASE recognized that Hive had something super precious: deeply felt connections and a really amazing culture (plus tangible assets like a website and great branding). Hive members had a sense of themselves as a network that went beyond each of their organizations, and this had personal and professional implications for them — and also implications for the kids they served. PASE had the ability to engage the expertise which could help inform the transition.
Enter Loup. Chris Lawrence, Loup’s Director of Strategy, has a long history with Hive NYC. He brought a deep caring to this work as well as specific skills, a refined pedagogy, and clear strategic thinking, honed over 10 years of developing the network. So, while Loup brought its approach and methodology, we were also able to contribute deep historical and tacit knowledge. That was a huge bonus. As advisors and facilitators, it’s not often we understand our clients so intimately. But it was also sometimes difficult and emotional. We had a lot of late-night conversations about how we might best support PASE and the network (no matter what they decided to do), when to step up, and when to step back.
We began where Loup always begins: by listening. We know that when organizations listen to their stakeholders, it opens up powerful opportunities to connect and support the people they serve. This approach is driven by our core values, which you can read about in our manifesto. So we listened, and we documented a series of narratives from the Hive network, which you can read in the Hive collection on StoryEngine.
We discovered a complex cultural environment: the Hive network had grown through a continuum of cultural integrations with different institutions over its ten year history. PASE needed to first stabilize the network with its own institutional culture and practices, while ensuring that it created the conditions for Hive’s new culture to emerge: What should they keep? What might they introduce?
Hive exuded a constant joy and DIY spirit. To celebrate this, Loup designed a series of activities that assisted PASE with helping Hive members reconnect to some of these cultural components. The goal here was to help PASE articulate the network to help them shift Hive to what it would emerge as after it had no organizational steward.
Using the narratives we collected, Loup facilitated a series of online and offline activities for folks to engage, analyze, and ideate. We held an annotatathon to collaboratively identify and analyze the themes, needs, and significant moment emerging from members’ stories. This was followed by an in-person design lab — a workshop to generate and explore ideas based on these insights. This process of joint sense-making followed by a design lab allowed Hive and PASE folks to surface potential activities and opportunities, and we then facilitated a process of helping them identify which to tackle first.
The stories that came out of this project helped to capture what made Hive special. We were also able to see themes emerging that confirmed the strengths of Hive, from where the network would be able to build. — Delia Kim, PASE Program Director
This work helped elevate and celebrate Hive’s achievements — and it reminded people of what they had made together and why it was important to them. It helped people say, “We can build on this. There are simple, low-cost, DIY ways to continue doing this work. It doesn’t have to be fancy.” It gave a framework and a platform for them to see everything they had accomplished and everything that could be leveraged. This in turn gave a sense of possibility, agency, and self efficacy, so that folks felt confident to carry it on.
In parallel to this human-centered design work, Loup produced a recommendations report based on the interviews, our observations, and our facilitated activities. The report captures our advice to PASE and the emerging network leaders who would be stewarding Hive after the transition year. We began by reviewing existing Hive assets: they had a resource directory, a ton of awesome branding assets, and a website. We showed all of that together and explained how it created a strong foundation on which to grow.
Throughout our collaboration with PASE, we provided advice and consulting rooted in our deep respect for the network’s history. Building on past relationships, we kept a fluid conversation with PASE and took part in planning committee meetings to chart a future for the network.
It was a real possibility that 2018 would be Hive NYC’s final year. But by January 2019, enough network leaders had stepped forward to show that they were poised and ready for a next chapter. Hive re-launched as a member-led network. With PASE’s guidance, Hive leaders were able to make a commitment that the network would continue to exist, to define what that existence would look like, and to lay out a new value proposition for members. To create a tangible bridge between Hive’s legacy and the new version of the network, Loup leveraged its work with PASE to research and design a ten-year timeline of key Hive moments. The timeline covered part of the wall at the first State of the Hive meetup led by the new leadership. We facilitated participant interaction with the timeline, helping them to place themselves on it visually (with really cool digital polaroids!), add their perspectives, and draw connections.
This was an amazing learning experience and we were honored to be able to play a part. It was integral to the process to look back at Hive’s past, in order to look forward. We are a strong proponent of the power of networks and thrilled to see Hive moving forward. — Delia Kim, PASE Program Director
What Loup will take away from this experience is the value of joint, participant-centric sense-making — versus analysis by outsiders — and some new ways that we might help people and organizations see themselves as vital hubs in social change networks. We refined our StoryEngine methodology to reflect the network back to itself and to — literally — show the faces and the stories. We have now have really concrete ways, like the annotatathon plus design lab workshop format, to help networks listen to each other and strengthen themselves and work together.
Interested in working with Loup? See the many different ways we assist companies, NGOs, civil society organizations, and individuals here.
