WHO WE ARE
We are experienced advisors to change agents who are building networks for social impact
Network Impact was founded in 2006 with a mission to promote the development and use of networks for social impact
Most of the world’s pressing social problems are too complex to be addressed by any one entity.
In the early 2000s, the availability of cheap digital communications technologies, developments in the science of networks, and insights from the critical social sciences about how social networks behave and scale, created a new field: social impact network building. Today, the Network Impact team works with many types of social impact networks – large and small; place-based and non-place based; single funder and multi- funder; domestic and international.
We promote network approaches across a range of social issues to create a just, sustainable, and equitable world.
Our multifaceted capacity is suited to the dynamic field of social network impact building.
We have experience working across cultural and linguistic contexts. The Network Impact team includes fluent speakers of English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
Madeleine Beaubien Taylor, Ph.D.
FOUNDER + CEO
For more than 20 years, Madeleine has worked with public and nonprofit organizations and national foundations on strategy, program development and assessment, most recently with a focus on social impact networks.
Over the last decade, she has contributed to the design, implementation and evaluation of a wide range of network initiatives in the U.S., including network organizing to support policies that benefit rural people and places, cross-sector initiatives to promote immigrant integration, regional collaborations to end homelessness, and network efforts to increase place-based civic engagement.
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Madeleine is the author with Peter Plastrik of Net Gains: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change (2006) considered a leading contribution to the field, and a co-author of Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact (2014).
A native of Quebec, Madeleine spent her early career as a social anthropologist leading research in Mozambique, where she directed a documentary film about rural development and implemented the country’s first-ever rural mobile cinema program. Madeleine subsequently taught with the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies at Harvard University where she received an award for her teaching focused on implementing anthropological approaches in the field of economic development. She is a co-author of the book Reconstructing Democracy: How Citizens are Building from the Ground Up that explores resident engagement, civic practices and forms of collective agency in place.
Anne Whatley, MSc
SENIOR CONSULTANT
Anne has dedicated the last 15 years to advising on communications evaluation and information strategy for online and social network initiatives.
Anne’s experience includes managing award-winning public education campaigns, specializing in interactive and online efforts. Her projects have received several awards, including PR Week New Media Site of the Year, Silver SABRE Best Use of the Web.
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She oversaw Cause Communications’ research and evaluation initiatives for more than five years, including assessing several of Robert Wood Johnson’s communications investments and The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s social impact games.
She has also led the development and strategy for a number of online communities, including RuralxChange.net, an online community for rural policy advocates. Publications include “Assessing Nonprofit’s Communications Capacity: An online self-assessment tool” in The Foundation Review (Vol 2, Issue 1) and the Network Evaluation Guide.
Earlier in her career, she worked in marketing at an internet startup, as an English as a second language teacher in South Korea and as a researcher for a Member of Parliament and the Fabian Society, a political think tank in London, England.
Anne received her MSc with honors from the London School of Economics and her BA from Washington University in St. Louis.
Amanda Welsh
SENIOR CONSULTANT
Amanda has worked at the intersection of information strategy, research, evaluation and policy and advocacy work for two decades.
She worked in strategic philanthropy for nearly a decade at The California Endowment where she managed a grant portfolio that included communications and public policy issue area research to support the foundation’s major strategic initiatives, as well as a focus on bolstering community health journalism and evaluating the impact of journalism training programs.
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Her additional experience includes user experience design and engagement strategy for technology companies, media organizations, and national policy and advocacy organizations. She is a frequent contributor to both program and initiative-level research and evaluation on a range of issues including the role of technology and data in social impact work, policy and advocacy evaluation, and effective capacity building for evaluation, communications and strategy.
She has a BA in Architecture/Design of the Environment from the University of Pennsylvania.
Peter Plastrik
FOUNDER AND SENIOR ADVISOR
Peter has worked with dozens of social-change networks and written extensively about network start up and ongoing management.
Network development is part of his broader consulting practice, which includes strategic planning and innovation development, program assessment, organizational development, urban education, urban sustainability, transnational immigration, networks and philanthropic foundations.
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Plastrik is coauthor with David Osborne of two books about reinventing government as well as coauthoring Net Gains: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change and Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact (2014).
André Lima, MSc
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
André has 10 years of experience in the public sector across a variety of positions and focus issues including immigration law and policy, civic technology/digital services, and equitable procurement.
He created a legal defense fund in Boston for immigrants facing deportation and conducted the first accessibility audit of the City of Boston's official website, boston.gov, which he managed for two years.
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André received his Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology from Wesleyan University and his Master's Degree in Legal Anthropology and the Sociology of Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
