Social Innovation

How to do it, or is our particular nonprofit effort engaged in it, are becoming key questions for nonprofit executives, especially as more and more funders see it as a marker for funding.

A great source to look to is Dr. Paul Light, and in this article by him from the Nonprofit Quarterly, that is examined.

An excerpt.

“How do societies create the breakthroughs needed for a more just, tolerant, healthy, educated, and equitable world? How do they challenge the prevailing wisdom without losing hope? How do they enact lasting change and protect it from the inevitable backlash?

“Many of us look to 24/7 heroes and highly visible organizations for the answers. After all, they get the uncommon hero awards and the public admiration, often because they have forged their brand identities around big-ticket change. They are easy to identify and admire.

“However, there are dangers in focusing almost exclusively on what I call Type-A, hero-driven social entrepreneurship as the central driver of change. First, we may underappreciate the new combinations of ideas that come from Type-B, team-driven social entrepreneurship, which may yet prove to be a more effective approach for challenging the status quo.

“Second, we may underinvest in other, equally powerful drivers of social change needed for the enactment (broadly defined), implementation, expansion, and defense of past breakthroughs.

“And, third, we may underestimate the impact of the challenges embedded in the larger breakthrough cycle that ignites, frustrates, and sustains change from the initial commitment to act all the way through to the full embrace of a new prevailing wisdom….”