Mapping Power Links Within the Environmental Movement

Just read a great article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review by U of Michigan professor Andrew Hoffman. Interested in narrowing down the type of environmental organization with the most potential to influence large-scale systemic change in the private sector, he mapped out the top 6500 environmental ngos in the US, their ties with each other, various stakeholders, and corporate networks, to pull five specific types of NGO ‘personality types’ with regards to corporate partnerships.

Is it more influential to be engaged with a corporation in the periphery or core of their network? What kind of ties can a corporation and NGO sucessfully sustain in the long run to achieve sectoral shifts towards sustainability without compromising an NGO’s mission and values? Nothing like a little network mapping to clarify an organization’s positioning in an overall movement… Great read.