This is a CTP of initiative: Impact Hub Amsterdam (Netherlands)
In 2005, the first ‘Hub’ was opened in London, followed by many other initiatives all over the world (for example: Sao Paolo, Rotterdam and Amsterdam). Since then, the network and the amount of local hubs has grown across the world ‘like wildfire’ (Website Impact Hub, 2015). A global governance structure was set up, including a ‘transition’ period of contestation and reorganisation (see Bachman 2014 and Wittmayer et al. 2015). In 2013, the global network went through another major critical turning point: the rebranding of ‘the Hub’ into ‘the Impact Hub’.
This global rebranding process is discussed as a critical turning point that matters for the local Impact Hub Amsterdam, for two reasons. First, the global rebranding process preceded and informed the local rebranding process, which in turn coincided with the relocation of the Impact Hub Amsterdam to the Westerpark (see CTP relocating to Westerpark). One cannot fully understand the local rebranding process, without understanding the global rebranding process as a critical turning point in itself. Second, not only did the global rebranding process have an impact on the local Impact Hub Amsterdam, individuals involved in running the Impact Hub Amsterdam were and continue to be involved in the global network. This includes the two co-founders whom were interviewed. As such, the global rebranding has been a significant turning point in how the Impact Hub – both globally and locally – is experienced by these individuals.
In 2013, the Hub network was rebranded as the ‘Impact Hub’ in order to emphasise the common network aim of “catalysing impact” (Bachman 2014). The rebranding process represents how the theory of change of the Impact Hub network has shifted over the past few years, including the move from a space membership based business model, to a more service and program oriented business model. The Impact Hub can now be seen more as an ‘ecosystem’ for innovation and tackling problems that can be addressed with social entrepreneurship, rather than a location in which various enterprises run their daily operations. As described by a member of the management team of the global Impact Hub company: “Our new theory of change [is] that ecosystem change is more effective than individual change alone. And that by being the facilitator and a host of ecosystem building around certain social issues, we will get more progress around those social issues than just trough individual innovations. But individual innovations remain essential in this. It’s not that we’re discarding those, it’s that we’re upping the game so we can see bigger progress around our deliverables related to social change” (interviewee 8 as quoted in Wittmayer et al. 2015).
The global rebranding process has mostly been co-produced by all the individual Impact Hubs, the global Impact Hub association, and the global Impact Hub company. The local-global connection – the idea of being “globally connection and locally rooted” – is an important component of the aim to increase and “scale” impact. As the shareholder indicates: “That you are plugged into 60 other Hubs, if you want to scale your business, you immediately got a network of people to connect to”. After the governance transition in 2010, the current global governance structure of the Impact Hub consists of an Association of which all Impact Hubs are members (one Hub, one vote), and a Company that is owned by the Association and mandated to provide services to local Impact Hubs. This governance structure of the global Impact Hub network aims to be ‘decentralised’, ‘distributed’ and ‘bottom-up’, where every Impact Hub ‘is accountable for the whole’.
An important component of the rebranding process, is obviously the brand itself: Impact Hub. “Where change goes to work”, has become one of the main slogans of the network (Impact Hub website 2015). The Impact Hub’s ‘theory of change’ is focused on creating an ‘ecosystem’ that is an enabling environment for social entrepreneurs, by creating physical and virtual spaces for community relations, (informal) meetings and encounters. As the name Impact Hub indicates, there is an explicit aim to have societal impact. This goal is manifested at all levels: the global network organisation, the individual local Impact Hub sites, as well as in the projects and enterprises of most of the individual members.
On the website, the brand is introduced as follows: “We believe a better world evolves through the combined accomplishments of creative, committed, and compassionate individuals focused on a common purpose” and “Impact Hub offers you a unique ecosystem of resources, inspiration, and collaboration opportunities to grow the positive impact of your work. Joining our diverse community of members and collaborators will inspire, connect, and enable you to develop your best work every step of the way” (Impact Hub website 2016). An essential element of the brand is referred to as ‘the Hub experience’, which consists of three main ingredients: “a vibrant community, meaningful content, and an inspiring space to help you move from intention to impact” (Impact Hub website 2016). While the brand is globally shared, it is locally adapted: “while every Impact Hub offers a collaborative space and supportive working environment, each has its own unique local flavour” (ibid).
Other actors involved in the process of rebranding include the social entrepreneurs that make use of Impact Hub across the world, referred to as ‘members’ (currently over 15.000 members worldwide). Besides those members, the Impact Hub has several ‘partnerships’ and ‘collaborations’ with other businesses, individuals and organisations. On the website, these are invited to collaborate as follows: “Around the world Impact Hubs partner with a variety of like-minded organizations to mutually support each other to build sustainable solutions for the world. Thanks to our physical presence and locally-embedded collaborative communities, our partners access a unique source of social innovation, a global enabling platform to run issue-focused programs, and an inspiring environment to learn and increase their social impact. We challenge you to use the power of your business to drive meaningful social change. We welcome new alliances with businesses, individuals and organizations looking to increase their reach contribution to the social impact economy” (Impact Hub website, 2015). Several sources indicate that there seems to be an increasing interest from organisations – business, NGOs as well as governments – for cooperating with Impact Hub, both at the local and international level (Wittmayer et al. 2015). In the area of business, there is an increasing interest from “impact investors” as well as “corporates” who are looking at the growing sector of social entrepreneurship. Generally speaking, these larger organisations look at the Impact Hub, either to find promising innovations to invest in, and/or to have the Impact Hub helps them make their own organisations more innovative.
The concept of the Impact Hub is inspired by several other concepts and approaches, combining elements from co-working spaces, innovation labs, business incubators and community centres. Also for the governance of their network and local places, they work with existing facilitation and governance concepts such as ‘Art of Hosting’ and ‘Holacracy’ (see more in Wittmayer et al. 2015).
The development of the global governance structure (2010), as well as the emergence of the international network in the first place (2007-2010), were important preceding events before the global rebranding in 2013.
In April 2013, a global gathering of the network was held in London, to communicate and discuss the rebranding. As described by co-founder 2 of the Impact Hub Amsterdam: “There was a global decision made, or at least a global proposition. We first thought: ‘We like our ‘The Hub’ name!’ But we also thought that ‘The Hub’ is very generic, there are plenty of ‘hubs’ all around. How do we identify and define ourselves in this whole market that grew really fast after us? Everything we are doing is related to impact so basically we changed the brand to Impact Hub. Even tough Impact Hub just does not sound as nice (…) In terms of defining our business it was also a step: are we going for impact, are we really believing in it and do we really dare to put it in our name? So I think that was really a very good step in our process”.
There were also meetings afterward the rebranding process to mark and elaborate ‘the new theory of change’. In September 2014, a global gathering was held in Madrid to discuss how the different local Impact Hubs could cooperate more systematically.
The rebranding process, and the decisions that were made during that process, occurred in the context of a relatively new governance structure of the global Impact Hub network. The new governance structure is considered to be a ‘decentralised’, ‘distributed’ and ‘bottom-up’, in which every Impact Hub “is accountable for the whole” (Bachman 2014). Pleasing the hundreds of Impact Hub founders and team members across the globe, is obviously a very challenging task. As described by a board member of the global Impact Hub association: “It is hard to keep all these ‘crazy’ entrepreneurs aligned. (…) We want to avoid franchise but [we are] still replicating programs that work from one place to another. [It’s a matter of] finding the right balance. (…) We are being co-owners and as such take biggest decisions together. We are balancing this with becoming a bureaucratic system: finding ideal balance between participation and agility. As entrepreneurs, we don’t want something that is too much participatory, thus taking too long for quick decisions to be taken. But if it’s something we don’t build together, it won’t happen anyway if people feel strongly about it. When you’re searching for it, it’s not something that’s ready and done. We’re constantly evolving. The main point is always how to balance these two.” (Interviewee 17 quoted in Wittmayer et al 2015).
In this context, it is not surprising that the rebranding process went through similar tensions and balancing acts. There were quite some disagreements regarding the rebranding. There were Impact Hub teams and members across the world that did not like it, and kept disagreeing even after it had been voted and approved in the general assembly (Wittmayer at al. 2015). As described by a board member of the Impact Hub association: “There are times when we make decisions as a network and then you have the question of what to do if you don’t get a consensus on a decision. For instance when the branding changes, when 90% of the HUB voted for the change. What will the 10% do? Do they accept the will of the 90% and get on with that, or leave, or do they hold out? (…) What do you do with the ones who don’t want to leave but don’t want to change? When it’s something as fundamental as your branding? Those kind of issues are very real for us.’’ (Interview 29 as quoted in Wittmayer at al. 2015).
There seems to be an overall appreciation of the complexity and delicacy of finding a governance structure that works for over 15.000 local entrepreneurs across the globe. This attitude of acknowledging the complexity, and also the constant search for flexible and hybrid structures, experimenting with alternative decision-making and facilitation methods such as Holocracy and the Art of Hosting, seems to have helped the network to overcome its internal tensions and disagreements.
The rebranding from ‘The Hub’ to ‘Impact Hub’ – while in itself contested, also seemed to help overcome some previous contestations and disagreements. Before the ‘transition’ of the global structure and accompanying rebranding, the Hub network often used the concept of ‘radical change’ and ‘for a radically better world’. During/ after the ‘transition’, it was found that the word ‘radical’ was an issue for some Impact Hubs, particularly in Eastern Europe, and was taken out of official communication. The network did continue, however, try to capture the essence of the notion of ‘radical change’ with its renewed emphasis on impact - which is one of the explanations for the rebranding of the Impact Hub (Wittmayer et al. 2015).
The global rebranding was primarily anticipated and discussed during the global gathering in London in the spring of 2013. Interestingly, it seems that the local team in Amsterdam had a special role in the process of the global rebranding, in the sense that already before the global rebranding thing, they had been thinking about changing the identity of their local Hub in Amsterdam, partly due to a move to a new location (see CTP RELOCATION TO WESTERPARK). “The very nice thing about the global gathering was that we shared what we were doing [in Amsterdam]. Amsterdam was the very first one in the network (…) that because of our relocation needs started to rethink our business model (…). So we presented our ideas of [our hub] version 2.0 [during the global gathering] and everything seemed to converge and people were really excited. We started to see that other hubs also started to think about similar ideas and opportunities. [Then we realised]: actually if we are going to make a leap in our business model, then let’s leap it with the brand!” (co-founder 2).
More generally speaking, the Impact Hub network has a strong focus on learning, both in terms of sharing experiences as well as continuously adapting approaches and structures. Such learning happens through various different channels: (1) provision of space for encounters, including the informal ‘coffee corner’ and lunch table; (2) sharing of questions and experiences via the virtual space Hub-Net; (3) facilitate learning through extensive programming with a variety of events, courses, workshops; (4) ‘hosting’ practices by Impact Hub teams, in which the ‘hosts’ explicitly have a task to connect individuals to learn from one another; and (5) (social) media via which stories and experiences are shared. As part of this learning culture, there is also a culture of sharing failures. Several sources report that there has been the organisation of “Fuck Up Nights” to exchange failures.
The existence of a global network, is reported as facilitating and accelerating the learning processes, as it increases the pool and the availability of knowledge and experiences. Also, it is argued that the whole set up of the Impact Hub, as well as the particular way in which the global structure governance has been developed, aims categorically at learning. As described by one team member of the Impact Hub Amsterdam: “Instead of just having 10 colleagues here who are working towards the same purpose, you have 100 colleagues all over the world who you can then share knowledge and share ideas with. So knowledge actually happens much quicker because you’re exchanging knowledge of all these different contexts and settings. And we collaborate quite closely through the virtual platform, but we also physically come together twice a year. (…) That’s really interesting because we try to learn from each other’s best practices, and that’s continued on a daily base by having online community practices.” (Interviewee 4 as quoted in Wittmayer et al. 2015).
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