A group of people of color standing outside posing for the camera with excitement and their arms in the air.

Boston Green and Healthy Building Network

The Boston Green & Healthy Building Network provides a platform for collaboration to promote green and healthy buildings for representatives from about ten Boston-area non-profit organizations and the City of Boston. This case study summarizes learnings and maps the evolution of the network's composition and dynamics since it was launched in 2005 at the initiative of the Barr Foundation.

From April 2005 to present (early 2008) the Boston Green & Healthy Building Network has provided a forum for collaboration to promote green and healthy buildings for representatives from about ten Boston-area non-profit organizations and the City of Boston. The Network was launched in 2005 at the initiative of the Barr Foundation where a senior program officer both identified the similar objectives of numerous non-profit grantees and City agencies working on this topic and recognized that their work was not coordinated. Barr sponsored a facilitator/coordinator to help the Network self-organize and determine its most useful objectives and practical actions.Since the Network's start-up it has contributed materially to advancing green and healthy building construction and maintenance policies practices and programs in the City.

In a survey done in mid-2007 95% of Network participants also indicated that the Network had helped their organizations advance their missions. The survey also showed that the key accomplishments of the Network fall into four areas:

  • Enhanced connectivity among the Network participants leading to new relationships expanded knowledge and greater awareness of each other's work
  • Greater alignment and coordination of advocacy work by these non-profit organizations and enhanced access to decision-makers
  • Integration of green and healthy building objectives in tangible projects by the City of Boston and within the work of participating non-profit organizations
  • New collaborations among Network organizations leading to significant gains in promoting green and healthy buildings.

Some key challenges the Network has faced include how to ensure that:

  • Participants get sufficient benefit and value out of the time they dedicate to participating in the Network;
  • Network members find the most fruitful ways to collaborate; and
  • There is clarity about the Network's purpose and goals as it evolves.

Lessons of this experience that could be applied more broadly include these findings:

  • The group saw as critical the Foundation's funding for a facilitator to coordinate the Network and its meetings while remaining mainly "hands-off" in directing how the Network developed.
  • The Network's early focus on learning what each group did including developing a matrix to map who was doing what types of work helped people to see new opportunities for joint action increased coordination and reduced duplication of effort.
  • Lastly the Network's focus has been flexible and has evolved in response to the larger context (e.g. the City of Boston's green/healthy building agenda) and individual members' needs.

Download the Boston Green and Healthy Buildings case study

comments powered by Disqus