Glocalization Model

Background

Co-creating, facilitating and supporting the Flying Labs Network over the past 8+ years has given us hands-on and lived experience of a novel approach to localization and scale. One that moves from local to global, then back to local. One that builds on sharing and collaboration as key values. 

Carefully documenting our innumerable learnings and experiences, failures, and successes along the way and then sharing them in various formats has been the first step towards creating this model. And while we make new learnings and keep on improving our approach, today we have a well-defined model. We use it ourselves, to build new networks. Since 2023 we also offer it to other organizations for adoption, to make it their own operation and scale model.

Why a different localization model is needed

In one word: sustainability!

In the traditional development model, a handful of organizations—often based in the Global North—decide which initiatives to fund, influencing the futures of millions in the Global South. Local communities and even national governments are forced to reshape their missions to align with what appeals to distant decision-makers, rather than what truly meets their needs. Solutions designed for entirely different cultural, economic, and geographic contexts are imported and implemented with little adaptation. Foreign teams arrive with funds tied to predetermined impact indicators, and they set to work, often with an implicit bias as to what knowledge is valuable and what processes are effective. And they create dependencies.

In these circumstances, community buy-in and local ownership are squashed before they ever have a chance. But without them, the interventions often fail to create lasting change and produce a cycle of short-term initiatives.

What the model entails, and how it works

The Glocalization Model provides the underlying infrastructures to guide the “locally led, globally supported” direction. It replaces dependencies with interdependencies. And it creates a "pull" instead of a "push" approach. The model is made up of 4 key parts that build on each other.

The model provides the necessary infrastructures for networks and operating structures that:

• bring together a diverse and large group of existing and locally owned organizations committed to a common goal/purpose;
• are enabled by a decentralized power structure and shared governance model;
• focus on growing and learning collectively through open collaboration, contribution, and sharing.

Who the model is for, and how it can be adopted

Our model is a strong fit for local social enterprises that want to scale their work to more geographies and take their work global. It's also a powerful operating model for international and global organizations who want to replace their "push" mechanisms with a "pull" approach, and take their localization and #ShiftThePower efforts a step further and/or try out a bottom-up and decentralized power approach to localization, for their full operations or a program.

To date, 4 non-profit organizations have already adopted the model for their operations and scale. Our adoption package includes support to create the adoption strategy, including detailed processes for successful facilitation and coordination, based on our 8+ years of experiences and learnings. The package also gives full access to our success and failure stories, templates and on-going support from our team to support efficient replication and adoption.