Youth Movements - White Papers

The central focus of this paper is to explore the increasing importance of developing projects, programs and outcomes that involve collaboration as a means towards the achievement of final outcomes. Beginning with an overview of some of the factors driving the global increase in non-governmental organizations (NGOs), trends in available funding and support for NGO efforts following the onset of the global financial crisis will speak to the emergence of greater competition among NGOs for increasingly scarce financial resources. Taken together, growth trends, financial austerity in conjunction with the trend towards the increasing availability of information and communication technologies (ICTs), create a unique environment for NGOs. As the transaction costs of information exchange continue to decrease and levels of connectivity in terms of both direct access and social media usage increase, the stage is set for NGOs with basic technology capacities to work together in new and exciting ways. This paper will briefly outline the trends which are active within the NGO ecosystem, looking to bring together insights from different disciplines to inform discussions about the current state of collaborative efforts among a group of NGOs. Building on initial conversations at the YouthMovements Global Summit in February, 2012, preliminary server research and qualitative interviews conducted with NGO partners, insights will endeavour to define an initial set of ‘guiding principles’ which will be used as points of departure towards the development of strong, sustainable and mutually advantageous collaboration models both within and beyond the NGO sector.