Northern Forest Tourism Network
Collaborating to Create a World Class Destination – Join Us!Networks
The network approach is characterized by intentional partnerships between entities (nonprofit, for profit, state agency, individual, etc.) who share a commitment to a set of outcomes and agree to work in concert to achieve them. Effective networks cultivate cross-sector members, and then leverage the particular skills of their diverse membership to achieve better outcomes more effectively than any member could have alone. As Wei-Skillern and Marciano put it in “The Networked Nonprofit” (Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2008): “By mobilizing resources outside their immediate control, networked nonprofits achieve their missions far more efficiently, effectively, and sustainably than they could have by working alone.”
RDT has chosen the network approach as a way to learn, improve, and achieve results in a field – rural tourism in the Northern Forest region – that includes many dispersed players and places. The network can serve to engage and coordinate participants without in any way muting or displacing the critical uniqueness of those people and places involved.
This network is NOT just about nonprofits. In fact, a central goal of this regional tourism network is to create a dynamic way to create connections across sectors, across organization types, etc. What binds the network together – and we hope will be the juice that grows it – is a shared commitment to improving tourism outcomes in the Northern Forest Region. Network members do and will include small tourism operators, state agencies, nonprofits, sizeable tourism destinations, chambers of commerce, and partners in the fields of higher education, economic development and more who also have a stake in the outcome toward which we are working.
Want to learn more about networks?
Advocacy 2.0 has a very useful Network Basics section on their website, including a good set of Links and Resources.
Network visuals or maps are often a helpful way to see – and figure out – who is or should be involved. View these network maps created based on interviews of tourism providers in Franklin County to see how networks can be mapped out to better understand opportunities and challenges.
