A guide to identifying improvement opportunities in a distribution network
Developed by an MIT student team after working with LoveLife in South Africa

Following the completion of their Global Health Delivery Lab (ghdLAB) projects in Africa and India, we asked our MIT student teams to reflect on their ghdLAB project experience and share what they learned – insights, a how-to guide, best practice tips  – in ways that can be used by others undertaking similar work or facing similar issues in global health. We share their thoughts under the ‘management for the world’ (mftw) collection in the hopes that others will build on it in keeping with the creative commons license.

by Tyeliah Duncan, Rebbie Hughes, Todd Waldron, Nicole Zenel

Introduction

This guide provides a list of pertinent questions that can help you identify potential improvement opportunities in your distribution networks.  This document has been written under the following assumptions:

• You are an NGO or non-profit organization
• You currently distribute a publication or information
• Your goal is to improve your distribution of that publication or information
• Your publication or information is distributed in a recurring fashion
• Your organization is mission-oriented
• You are in a resource-constrained setting

This guide has been divided into five main categories: distribution, feedback, content, demand, and cost.  Each section poses questions that are relevant to improve the overall effectiveness of your distribution.  The questions are designed to ensure that all improvement possibilities are being considered.  By analyzing your answers to the questions in this tool, you can identify strengths and areas for improvement within your distribution network.

While each category is important, they are interconnected and thus some improvements may be made that can affect multiple areas.  These categories were selected to address five key characteristics of any distribution network:

• Demand: How many members of your target audience want to access your information?
• Content: What information is presented and how?
• Distribution: How does your target audience get access to your information?
• Feedback: How do you know your information is reaching its distribution points?
• Cost: How much does it cost to achieve accessibility?

Download the full Reaching more for less: improving the distribution of information(pdf) for more.

Was this article useful to you? Please give us feedback on how to improve sharing our work by leaving us a comment or e-mailing us at ghd.projects.lab@mit.edu.

 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.