I think those are all true, but the goal is to maximise good done, not to maximise the on-paper efficiency of any particular organisation. Through that lens, there’s a counterpoint to each of these:
More embedded in the movement overall = more likely to suggest projects/software solutions to movement problems than an in-house dev would be
Capable of triaging across the movement. If your website goes down and something comparably urgent is going on elsewhere, the agency can prioritise whichever is the most important issue (much more true of a donor-funded agency—a low-bono one will be bound to honour its contracts to the best of its ability even in the face of new data)
There’s reduced overhead in managing demand across the movement vs an uncoordinated approach (though the third bullet in both our cases is arguably a restatement of the first two)
I think those are all true, but the goal is to maximise good done, not to maximise the on-paper efficiency of any particular organisation. Through that lens, there’s a counterpoint to each of these:
More embedded in the movement overall = more likely to suggest projects/software solutions to movement problems than an in-house dev would be
Capable of triaging across the movement. If your website goes down and something comparably urgent is going on elsewhere, the agency can prioritise whichever is the most important issue (much more true of a donor-funded agency—a low-bono one will be bound to honour its contracts to the best of its ability even in the face of new data)
There’s reduced overhead in managing demand across the movement vs an uncoordinated approach (though the third bullet in both our cases is arguably a restatement of the first two)