Thanks to Stacy Caldwell at Dallas Social Venture Partners for connecting me to the Megacommunity Movement:
The megacommunity recognizes the necessity (and power) of business, government, and civil society working together on global issues.
A megacommunity is a new approach to solving problems which span business, government and the communities in which we live.
A megacommunity is:
- the space in which complex problems exist, and are addressed
- an collaborative environment where leaders interact according to their common interests, while maintaining their unique priorities
- a lens through which we can examine a complex problem in a new way
- determined by the existence of tri-sector engagement and an overlap in common interest
A megacommunity is not:
- another form of public-private partnerships
- another name for corporate social responsibility or philanthropy
- another variation on conflict resolution
- another international/intergovernmental forum
- a really big community of interest
- a collection of like-minded actors
The objective for each organization operating in a megacommunity is achieved by optimizing its interests instead of maximizing, all participants gain. Best of all, operating in a megacommunity is not a zero-sum game
The Critical Elements of a Megacommunity
There are five critical elements. The first two, tri-sector engagement and an overlap of vital interests, can be thought of as preconditions.
- Tri-Sector Engagement must be present in any megacommunity; the noticeable difference between megacommunities and other public-private partnerships is the civil society component, and the ‘open nature’ of the engagement – specifically, not focusing on just the elements the parties can agree on to tackle together, but also those areas that they may not have common ground to work in tandem
- Overlapping in Vital Interests describes the aspects of any particular issue of which all members have an individual interest – hence necessitating their involvement in the megacommunity
The other three elements, convergence, structure, and adaptability, are critical features of the megacommunity design. An initiative that takes them into account has a far greater chance of success than an initiative that ignores them.
- Convergence is the commitment to mutual action that all members must work toward; no member can exist in a megacommunity with the intent to disrupt or undermine the effort
- Structure describes the set of protocols and organizing principles that must exist to allow for converged commitment on the overlapping vital interests – this structure resembles a scale-free network
- Adaptability is necessary for the megacommunity to function effectively and make progress on the issue itself, and on the individual interests of the participants – adaptability allows the network to be scalable and flexible
