Social Innovation for Social Change

Social Innovation for Social Change

Social innovation has become like the flavour of the month, and like the term sustainable development it has many interpretations depending on your world view.  Social innovation comes from the community economic development and social enterprise world and encourages ingenious new ways to think about and addressing the complex problems we face.  The old silos of government, community, and business begin to break down and transform as we move to a partnership model for organizations and systems based on principles of inclusion, participation, positive feedback loops, health ecosystems and collective rights.

Sustainability and sustainable development in my view, is a model of economic development that marries social, economic and ecological value and goals.  It ends the hubris of living like there is no tomorrow and robbing our children and grand children of their right to a habitable planet and civil society.  

• Community and Stakeholder Engagement

  • Inspirational strategies to address apathy and cynicism for organizing your community and action campaigns.

• Community Development Program Models

  • Successful mentorship, peer to peer support and peer advocacy, training for trainers programs that move from charity to social justice models.

• Participatory Action Research

  • Powerful methods that empower people with lived experience in leadership for collective action and transformative results.

• Community Economic Development Planning

  • Imagine and economy that made health, not just money. Where local people build skills and jobs using local resources for local goods and services, where trade and procurement were not about exploitation and market share.  Healthy people and a healthy planet are possible with whole community planning and CED.

• Restorative Practice

  • Healthy organizations that empower people is a goal achieved by regular practices for a healthy organizational culture and participatory structures.

• Intrapreneurship

  • Leaders are not all CEO’s. You can make change from within organizations from any position and be a catalyst for community and collaboration from the top, the middle and the bottom.

• Social Enterprise

  • Blending the social purpose of community organizations with the prosperity of small businesses, social enterprises begin with idea jamming or idea generation and moves to conceptualizing a business model that fits.  Dream and envision how to make change your business!