What is Civic-Franchising?

NICE Network fosters the replication of human service nonprofits across America.

There's an old adage that says "the best way to make it through a mine filed is to follow someone who's already made it." That good advice underscores the current phase of the movement of civic solutions. Over thirty years of experience by leaders in this unorchestrated movement is providing a wealth of information about pitfalls and shortcuts. The experiences of pioneers show us how to widen the playing field for even more civic innovations.

A major business precept established during the last half of the twentieth century was "imitation," which is symbolized best by the concept of "franchising." During the 1990's, a large percentage of civic pioneers encouraged others to imitate or replicate their successes. The practice of what we call "civic-franchising" has since been responsible for the rollout of dozens of thriving social cures nationwide.

In this case, imitation doesn't mean exact replication. Most civic-franchises adopt variations on the original because every community and neighborhood is different. But the basic concept is what's important. Why reinvent the wheel when someone else has already paid the price and gone through the "trial and error" of learning what works.

NICE's mission is to help those who've successfully created an idea bring visibility to it and broadcast it far and wide so that others who feel called to help those in their communities with a specific human service issue can bring help to the situation more quickly. Communicating what's working helps reduce redundancy in the nonprofit community and focus our energies for greater success in helping others.