Introducing ShareCraft

There are some patterns that keep reoccurring the longer you work in the social sector. For me, the cycle of piloting then abandoning good programs is one of the biggest wastes. It goes something like this -

A funder puts money into a new pilot or program looking for a lasting solution. The organisation works hard to deliver with the pilot group, with money spent on a formal external evaluator or even a randomised control trial (RCT). A few years go by, the initial funding runs out, and even if the program has proven itself, the funder's interest moves on. The effort and program is left in limbo. How does this great program find new partners, continue its funding or spread to new places and new beneficiaries? And because there is seldom comparable data between different programs, we might not even be sure that after all that effort that program has better impact than alternatives.

I've worked across many parts of the social sector over the last 15 years, the these three challenges keep coming up: the constant reinventing of the wheel, the slow pace of innovation and the struggle to scale and spread programs and practices that really work.

While we can't change the funding or the lack of incentives for innovation, what we have done is to build a platform to make it easier for social organisations to find partners and spread their best practices and programs to others, and to collaborate in communities of practice. Ideas on how to fix social problems are plentiful, but methods that work in practice and can be replicated and spread - these are not as common.

Think about how ideas spread in the social sector. Often you might go to a conference and hear about a program or project, take a photo of the slides and then go back to your organisation wanting to implement something similar. But the speaker at the conference doesn't have the time or incentive to support or train you, and there may be no well-documented methodology to follow. We need to move to a world where programs have good documentation and processes that enable them to move and be adapted to new contexts, while building a learning community between all the partners delivering that model.

That’s the gap ShareCraft was built to close. ShareCraft is our new platform designed to make it easier for social organisations to find, share, and spread the practices and programs that genuinely work. Here’s what it does -

• Authors of best practices or programs can list their practice, capturing details about the method, evidence, implementation considerations and other factors to promote the practice and manage their 'pipeline' of innovative programs

• For more complex programs, authors can manage partners along a set of stages from enquiry through to accreditation, contracting and licensing

• Organisations or communities looking for practices will then be able to find and license those practices (free or paid), whether to strengthen a service as part of a tender, or for a community looking for proven solutions to a pressing problem

• Alliances or communities of practice can also use ShareCraft to manage and deepen their collaborations, with a record of discussions, events and knowledge base

• Conferences can turn a 2-day conference into a year-long opportunity to engage people in discussion and knowledge sharing by adding on a Community of Practice.

ShareCraft is currently in Beta testing phase, which means now is a great time to get involved. We’re inviting organisations, alliances, and collaborations to explore the platform, try it out with your own practices or communities, and tell us what works and what doesn’t. Your feedback at this stage will shape what ShareCraft becomes.

If you have a good practice you want to share, or a program you want to spread, go to www.sharecraft.org and sign up for free. We'll then approve you and give you access to a demo space to play with.

Are you running a community of practice? We’d especially like to hear from alliances, networks, and community of practice leaders who are looking for better ways to connect members, share knowledge, and embed good practice across their field. Get in touch with us (email support@sharecraft.org) and we’d be glad to explore how ShareCraft could work for you.

Are you curious about the bigger questions such as: how does innovation really spread in the social sector? What makes a practice replicable? How do we build genuine learning communities? We’re exploring all of this and more on the ShareCraft blog. Sign up to engage in the discussion.