What Is Social Innovation?

Summary

The transcript discusses the concept of social innovation as a means to address persistent social issues that traditional democratic processes struggle to solve. It defines social innovation as novel solutions that are more effective and just than existing ones, with benefits primarily for society. Examples include social finance like microfinance, new organizational forms for social impact, social enterprises, and social movements. The speaker argues for a new process of social innovation that involves community co-design, piloting, and continuous learning, rather than relying solely on experts and large-scale interventions.

Takeaways

• 🤔 Social innovation is needed to address persistent societal issues that traditional democratic processes and public policy have not been able to solve effectively.
• 🏙️ Homelessness in Los Angeles is cited as an example of a complex problem that has not been resolved through conventional means despite ongoing efforts.
• 💡 The Stanford Social Innovation Review defines social innovation as a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, and just, with benefits primarily accruing to society as a whole.
• 💼 Social finance, such as microfinance and crowdfunding, is highlighted as a form of social innovation that provides financial services to those traditionally excluded from credit markets.
• 🏥 New organizational forms, like LA County's Housing for Health program, are examples of social innovation within government structures to address public health issues through non-traditional means.
• 🤝 Collective impact is discussed as a social innovation strategy that involves multiple organizations aligning their efforts towards common social objectives, as seen in the Los Angeles Promise Zones.
• 🏢 Social enterprise is presented as a form of social innovation where business models are used to address societal problems, such as employing individuals re-entering society from prison.
• 🚸 Social movements, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, are cited as powerful examples of social innovation that have led to significant cultural and legislative changes.
• 🔄 The traditional social change agenda is critiqued for being slow and reliant on experts, suggesting a need for a more emergent, community-driven model that values continuous learning and adaptation.
• 🌟 The ultimate goal of social innovation is to shift society from an unjust or unsustainable equilibrium to a new, improved state, which requires rethinking the processes that generate social innovations.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of social innovation?

The main purpose of social innovation is to address persistent social problems that traditional democratic processes and public policies have not been able to solve effectively. It aims to create novel solutions that are more effective, efficient, sustainable, and just than existing solutions.

Why is social innovation necessary according to the transcript?

Social innovation is necessary because there are certain entrenched social issues, such as homelessness and educational achievement gaps, that have not been overcome by traditional approaches. It is needed to bring about major social change and to create new processes that can achieve social objectives.

What is the definition of social innovation as mentioned in the transcript?

Social innovation is defined as a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions, and where the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than to private individuals.

Can you provide examples of social innovation mentioned in the transcript?

Examples of social innovation mentioned include social finance initiatives like microfinance and crowdfunding, new organizational forms like collective impact and public-private partnerships, social enterprises that serve social needs through business models, and social movements that drive cultural and legislative change.

How does the transcript suggest redefining the process of social innovation?

The transcript suggests redefining the process of social innovation by involving the community in co-design, conducting pilots and small-scale interventions, and creating a feedback loop for continuous learning and improvement. It emphasizes the need for a new structure and accountability system that supports the emergent model of social innovation.

What is the issue with the traditional social change agenda as described in the transcript?

The traditional social change agenda is described as a slow process that requires experts at each step, lacks rapid prototyping and learning, and focuses on outputs rather than transformative community changes. It also lacks a structure for funding pilots and accountability for small-scale interventions.

Why is the involvement of the community in the social innovation process important?

Community involvement is crucial because it ensures that the solutions are designed with the input of those directly affected by the social issues. This co-design process helps in creating more effective and relevant solutions, and it also helps in the diffusion and adoption of innovations.

What challenges does the current social sector face in adopting social innovation according to the transcript?

The current social sector faces challenges such as the lack of funding for pilot projects, the absence of accountability structures for small-scale interventions, and the need to redefine who the experts are in the context of social innovation. There is also a need to establish new partnerships and rethink the traditional approaches to social change.

How does the transcript differentiate between social innovation and other forms of social change?

The transcript differentiates social innovation by emphasizing its focus on novel solutions that create value for society as a whole, its reliance on community involvement and co-design, and its iterative and learning-oriented process that includes piloting and feedback loops.

What role does evidence play in the social innovation process as described in the transcript?

Evidence plays a critical role in the social innovation process by providing a basis for assessing the effectiveness of interventions. The transcript emphasizes the importance of learning and knowledge creation at every step, which includes gathering and analyzing evidence to inform and improve the social innovation process.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 Introduction to Social Innovation

The speaker begins by questioning the necessity of social innovation, contrasting it with the traditional approach of incremental improvements in public policy. They argue that while some problems can be addressed through democratic processes, others require significant social change. Using Los Angeles' homelessness issue as an example, the speaker suggests that traditional methods have not been entirely effective, hinting at the need for innovative solutions. The Stanford Social Innovation Review's definition of social innovation is introduced as a novel solution to social problems that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, and just than existing solutions, with the value created accruing primarily to society rather than private individuals.

05:01

💡 Examples of Social Innovation

The speaker categorizes social innovations into four areas: social finance, new organizational forms, social enterprise, and social movements. They discuss microfinance and crowdfunding as examples of social finance, which provide credit access to those traditionally excluded. New organizational forms like LA County's Housing for Health program and collective impact initiatives are highlighted for their ability to restructure how social impact is delivered. Social enterprise is exemplified by businesses created to hire individuals coming out of prison, emphasizing the potential of business models to address social issues. Lastly, social movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving are cited for their impact on both culture and legislation.

10:02

🔄 The Goal of Social Innovation

The speaker outlines the goal of social innovation as moving society from an unjust or unsustainable equilibrium to a new, improved one. They acknowledge that not all problems require social innovation and that democratic processes can address many issues. However, for persistent problems, new approaches are necessary. The speaker reflects on the traditional social change agenda, which involves problem definition, idea generation, funding, implementation, and evaluation. They express concern about the time-consuming nature of this process and the reliance on experts at each stage, suggesting a need for a more agile and community-involved approach.

15:03

🌱 An Emergent Model for Social Innovation

The speaker proposes an emergent model for social innovation that emphasizes community involvement from the outset. This model begins with a community needs assessment that includes the voices of those experiencing the issues firsthand. It moves to a co-design process for idea generation, ensuring that the community plays a central role in creating solutions. The model advocates for iterative learning and knowledge creation throughout the process, starting with small-scale pilots before scaling up. The speaker acknowledges the challenges in securing funding and establishing accountability for pilot projects, drawing a parallel to the R&D processes in the private sector. They call for a reimagining of the social sector's approach, including redefining expertise and forming new partnerships.

20:04

🚀 Transformative Change Through New Processes

In the final paragraph, the speaker calls for a willingness to embrace new processes that can lead to transformative change in the social sector. They argue that while social innovation should not be applied to all problems, there are persistent issues that demand a fresh approach. The speaker emphasizes the need for a process that allows for learning and adaptation, with a focus on community involvement and iterative development. They conclude by urging a reevaluation of the social sector's methods, suggesting that a new process could lead to large-scale, innovative solutions to long-standing social challenges.

Keywords

💡Social Innovation

Social innovation refers to the process of developing and implementing novel solutions to social problems that are more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing methods. In the video, it is discussed as a necessary approach to tackle persistent issues that traditional democratic processes have not been able to resolve, such as homelessness in Los Angeles. The concept is central to the video's theme, emphasizing the need for new methods to address longstanding societal challenges.

💡Achievement Gaps

Achievement gaps refer to the disparities in educational outcomes between different groups of students, often defined by socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity. The script mentions that despite legislative efforts like Brown v. Board of Education, these gaps persist, suggesting the need for social innovation to find new solutions to educational inequality.

💡Democratic Processes

Democratic processes are the mechanisms through which decisions are made within a democracy, typically involving voting and representation. The video questions whether these traditional processes are sufficient to address all social issues or if social innovation is necessary to complement them.

💡Homelessness

Homelessness is used in the script as a prime example of a complex social issue that has not been resolved through traditional means. It illustrates the need for social innovation to find new approaches to providing housing and support for those in need.

💡Social Finance

Social finance encompasses financial services and capital flows aimed at delivering social benefits and promoting an equitable society. The video mentions microfinance and crowdfunding as examples of social finance innovations that have provided access to credit for those previously excluded.

💡Organizational Forms

New organizational forms refer to the restructuring of how organizations operate to better deliver social impact. The video gives the example of LA County's Housing for Health program, which reoriented public health spending towards addressing housing as a solution to health problems, demonstrating a shift in traditional organizational approaches.

💡Collective Impact

Collective impact is a model for social innovation that involves multiple organizations working together towards a common goal. The video discusses the Los Angeles Promise Zones as examples of collective impact, where organizations collaborate to achieve community objectives rather than focusing solely on their individual outputs.

💡Social Enterprise

Social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives. The video suggests that some social problems may be best addressed through business models, as they can be financially sustainable and efficient. It contrasts traditional nonprofit approaches with the potential of social enterprises to create jobs for ex-prisoners, for example.

💡Social Movements

Social movements are large-scale efforts by groups of people to bring about social, political, or environmental change. The video cites the civil rights movement and Mothers Against Drunk Driving as examples of social movements that have driven significant societal change.

💡Equilibrium

In the context of the video, equilibrium refers to a stable state or situation that may not be just or effective for all members of society. The goal of social innovation is to disrupt this equilibrium and move towards a new, more just and effective state, particularly for persistent social issues.

💡Piloting

Piloting in the video refers to the process of testing small-scale versions of social innovations to learn and improve before full-scale implementation. It is part of an emergent model of social innovation that emphasizes learning and adaptation, as opposed to the traditional model that focuses on large-scale interventions from the outset.

Highlights

Social innovation is necessary for problems that traditional democratic processes have not been able to solve.

Homelessness in Los Angeles has persisted despite democratic efforts, indicating a need for social innovation.

Achievement gaps in education remain despite legislative actions like Brown v. Board of Education, suggesting a need for new approaches.

Social innovation is defined as a novel solution that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, and just than existing solutions.

Examples of social innovation include microfinance, crowdfunding, and social impact bonds.

New organizational forms for social impact, such as Housing for Health in LA County, can be a form of social innovation.

Collective impact, as seen in the Los Angeles Promise Zones, is an organizational form that drives social impact.

Social enterprise can serve societal problems more effectively than traditional nonprofits by operating as a business.

Social movements, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, can lead to cultural and legislative changes, exemplifying social innovation.

The goal of social innovation is to move society from an unjust or unsustainable equilibrium to a new, improved one.

Traditional social change processes are slow and require experts at every step, which can hinder innovation.

An emergent model for social innovation involves co-design with the community, piloting, and continuous learning.

The current challenge is the lack of structures to fund and support the pilot phases of social innovation.

Rethinking the process of social innovation requires redefining experts, creating new partnerships, and establishing new accountability structures.

Social innovation should be targeted at persistent social problems that require transformative change.

Transcripts

(upbeat music)

- So what is social innovation?

Before I even get to the what is, we have to think, why.

Why do we need social innovation?

Rather than

just gradually incremental improving public policy?

Do all problems need social innovation to find a solution?

Or can we solve problems through our democratic processes

that have been instituted and are constitutionally mandated

and so forth.

I think the answer is, to some, is yes and some is no.

To understand why social innovation

or what is social innovation we have to recognize

that there have been certain things

that we just really haven't been able to overcome

without major social change in one way or another, right.

We can think about one of our major issues

that confronts us here in Los Angeles,

homelessness is sitting in front of us, right.

It's been sitting in front of us

in our major metropolitan areas for decades,

but it's really spiked recently.

Have we been able to solve this

through traditional democratic processes alone?

Well, maybe we've done something we voted, right.

We voted to actually put resources to the task,

but the question is, put resources to the task in what way?

Right, do we need a whole new process perhaps?

So that's something I'll return to, right.

We've looked at the issue of achievement gaps in education

that existed, right.

We used a legislative process

with Brown v. Board of Education

to say, no, separate, but equal is not equal.

Right.

However, we still have those persistent achievement gaps.

So maybe we need a new process

to see those social objectives achieved.

So what is social innovation?

Well, the Stanford Social Innovation Review worked

probably about a decade to come up

with this particular definition.

Let me read it for you.

It's a novel solution to a social problem

that's more effective, efficient, sustainable,

or just than existing solutions and for which

the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole,

rather than to private individuals.

Spend a little more time with this article

and kind of see as they discuss how they came up with

this particular definition.

Now, as a definition it actually does a pretty good job

of describing what is, or what was a social innovation.

Okay.

So let me give you some examples that perhaps ground you

in what social innovations have been.

And there's like, I put them in four categories,

one, I put them in the category of social finance, right.

And so as soon as you hear that you might,

some of you are thinking of micro finance

and the Grameen Bank.

What did it do?

It provided finance to people

who are excluded from credit markets, right.

So there needed to be an innovation on how to bring credit

to a group that did not have access to credit before, right.

You might've heard of crowdfunding, right.

The Kivas the Kickstarters of the world.

What that does is allows us to access credit in new ways

than we were able to before and also sometimes

is able to bring credit again, to excluded entrepreneurs,

to excluded persons who have ideas that need capital, right.

You might have also heard of social impact bonds.

Okay.

Social impact bonds are a way to kind of bring capital

to try new ideas in social sector work,

but have different risk sharing arrangements

than we've ever had before.

So the social finance is an example of a social innovation

and it fits these definitions because

it can be more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just

than those existing solutions have been.

There's also, and I put it into

a new organizational forms to deliver social impact.

That is social innovation is to restructure

how we do things.

Right.

So, in that context, it could be within government itself,

breaking down silos that existed before.

And I love what LA County has done in this space

because now they have a program called Housing for Health.

I can't tell you how hard it was

for a public health department to decide that housing

was the solution to the public health problem, right.

That it seems obvious now maybe

and it seemed obvious when I started my career here at UFC

22 years ago, but it just couldn't happen

because public health departments

could only spend health dollars on health, okay.

Not prevention, not those things.

That is an example of a new organizational form

that has created something that wasn't there before.

Another example that we'll talk a little bit about

is collective impact as an organizational form

to drive social impact

and social sector work,

right.

So this was one that is,

Roberto mentioned public private partnerships before,

this in a way you could think about it this way

but it goes beyond that.

We have a great example here in Los Angeles

of collective impact where there's lots of examples,

but the one that I know most, and I see Michael in the room

who's worked for both of these organizations

are the two Los Angeles Promise Zones.

So we have the Central LA Promise Zone

and we have Slate-Z, the South LA Promise Zone.

They're committed to come together

to achieve common objectives, outcomes,

not outputs or inputs, if you will,

but to achieve those objectives to bring organizations

that are already doing work in the community

to kind of reorient their missions

to work collectively toward that common objective

and not be simply satisfied with

how many people you have served as a way of judging success,

but holding yourself accountable to the fact

that we want transformative community changes

that goes and accrues to the people who live there, right.

So, we're gonna talk about what that means

to have a new organizational form.

What are the challenges associated with it?

You might've heard of social enterprise.

A social enterprise is a social innovation.

Again, it comes from the fact that some problems

that we face in society are best act

or served through enterprise through business,

okay.

Now, for those of you who may have been steeped

in nonprofit work all your life,

and you're thinking, wait a second,

how could what I do be best served through business?

The answer is it might not be,

but the answer is it might be, right.

And two of my examples that I love to give,

have to do with thinking about the problem of people

who have been in prison coming out of prison.

We had a traditional way of trying to solve

the reentry problem, which was to provide job training,

skills development and so forth.

And then have someone in that nonprofit

go knock on the doors of businesses and say,

"hey, we have trained up this person really well.

They're great.

I vouch for them.

Would you hire them?"

Right.

Well, this was an incredibly slow process.

It didn't achieve objectives of reentry

that was really that successful.

And so, a number of years ago people said,

"you know what, I think we should create businesses

that hire those who are coming out of prison."

Why?

Because that will give them the resume,

which is more credible than me vouching for them, right.

That they were there on the job for that amount of time.

Now the challenge of course for social enterprise,

especially in our space

is that they're competing against non-social enterprises

in that same space and so thinking about

what is financially sustainable, it says efficient

and sustainable and effective, right.

It still might require some kind of

public or philanthropic funds to help engage that.

However, we have to figure out

the organizational form to do that.

And we'll talk a little bit about social enterprise

and how it can fit that niche in a unique space.

Social movements are my fourth kind of canonical example

of a social innovation about really noticing

that there is a particular social problem

that has not been solved through traditional means.

And we can certainly look at the civil rights movement

as

the canonical example.

And what many of you may have read,

what went on in the civil rights movement,

what went on in the farm workers movement

in California and so forth.

This were very,

very strategic operations

to achieve an objective that had long been withheld

from whole segments of society.

So in thinking about how that was done,

there was a set of processes in place

that achieved that objective, right.

And that objective you might look at

as both a change in culture and certainly a change in law,

right, and protections and so forth.

But, surprisingly my favorite example in the area

of social movements is, Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

To think about the culture that existed

around drunk driving, to think about how one person's

led a movement because of the loss of her child,

which changed not only culture, but also legislation

and created the culture of what we need,

have designated drivers, right.

And so, you can now see these innovations

popping up in all different ways.

The goal of social innovation,

if you don't mind, I'm an economist

so sometimes I use a few words like equilibrium,

and I apologize ahead of time, right.

But an equilibrium is somewhere where we're settled in.

Okay.

And the goal of social innovation is to move us

from this equilibrium that we're settled in,

which is not a potentially just equilibrium,

a sustainable equilibrium, an effective one for the people

who were there and to move us to a new one, okay.

And how do you move there?

Well again, not all problems demand social innovation

that we have these democratic processes of working

and so forth to get there.

But there are a few, a few problems

that have been so (indistinct), right.

That we need a new way to do things to get there.

So as I was thinking about all of these things,

these canonical examples and so forth,

what came up in my mind,

is that it's not about the innovation

and all the examples that I gave you,

but maybe what we have to rethink is the process

that could generate social innovations.

Now in business schools, a lot of times

you'll learn a lot of cases, right.

So you'll say this management, leadership

look what they did, look what this company did and so forth.

And I think the way that the field of social innovation

has begun, it's kinda done the same thing.

Look at Muhammad Yunus at the Grameen Bank,

look at this person who created this firm, right.

Look at this, Martin Luther King

and the civil rights movement and then say,

what can we learn from that?

But I think what we've come down to

is that we have to think about a new way

of kind of approaching a social change agenda

to get us some social innovations, if you will,

for those particular problems that demand it.

But there's a traditional approach

to a social change agenda, right.

Where you kinda do a problem definition,

you do a needs assessment.

You figure out what's wrong right now in this place, okay.

And so you might hire someone to do it.

You might have had a good, student coming out of school

that's really good at problem definition came out of,

USC or UCLA's MPP program and they're ready to go

and they help you do that.

Then you need to come up with an idea to solve that problem.

What is that idea?

What is going to potentially solve this problem?

Right.

So you have a whole process to develop that idea

often maybe sit in a room like this,

work together on your team, come up with an idea.

Now you need to fund that idea, right.

You go out, you apply for a grant.

You try to convince the City or County of LA

that your idea is the right one.

They give you some funding to go do it.

If you're an enterprise,

you have a social enterprise in mind,

you might go to a venture philanthropist

and say, this is my idea, et cetera.

And so you do that, then you wait,

you get to find out did you get the money or did you not?

This is not a rapid process yet.

Any of you been in this process before?

We're already to what, year one now, if not year two,?

Go to your fourth step, which is to actually,

if you are so lucky to get that money

to try out your idea, right.

Then you get to enact the intervention, if you will, right.

And if it's big enough, 'cause you have such a big idea,

then you get to do something fairly big

and you wanna track it because it matters.

Evidence matters.

I'm a firm believer in evidence.

Here I am at USC I guarantee you

that I'm gonna speak out of where evidence is.

And I will tell you where evidence doesn't yet exist.

And we can make that distinction.

We can have that conversation.

We don't have to pretend just because we want our idea

to look better than it is.

We're gonna speak based on evidence.

After three years, maybe after five years,

you feel like you have enough evidence

to generate knowledge then you tell the world,

we have learned something and this intervention

was more effective or it was less effective.

But here we are in year three, year four,

year five, year six, year seven, year eight

and now we have figured out that that problem

that we had back in year eight has a solution

that was better than before, but it's year eight.

And so that itself bothers me.

And so what I might argue is that not only is it long,

but this particular model requires experts

at each step in the process to allow it to proceed

because in the social sector work that we do,

there's a lot of risk, right.

There's not just the program risks

that would operate no matter what,

but there's also political risks

and organizational risks and so forth.

And so we don't wanna proceed

until we have someone bless it, right.

So, sometimes it's the philanthropist

that gives you the grant.

They have blessed your idea, right.

You hire someone that has a master's degree or PhD

to do the needs assessment to bless

that this is the problem even though you working

in the field knew that all along

'cause you've been working every single day,

you knew what the problem was, you didn't need to hire me

to go bless your idea, right.

But in this process, what's there.

And then what we do is we use performance metrics

above population level change kind of outcomes

as our metrics to show who we report to

because of accountability that we did serve all the people

we said we were going to serve, right.

But, did we solve the problem?

So what I'm gonna propose and how we're going to talk

a little bit about it here today and the next time

and the next time and the next time,

is that we need to think about the process

of social innovation,

which is an emergent model approach if you will.

And there's a lot of features that are different.

And I'm only gonna start to introduce those today.

One of them is that you're doing not a needs assessment,

but what I call a community needs assessment, okay.

In this community needs assessment you are

bringing up a different set of who are the experts.

There might be people with PhDs in the room.

There might be people with master's degrees

or legislative titles in the room,

but those who are actually living the experience

and actually living with what all those structural problems

that exist are also in the room.

And not just at the end of a process

or some sort of token community engagement.

The next step is the idea generation,

but what's different about that

is that you're using a co-design process with community.

And this co-designed process is different once again,

because the idea itself is not emerging from the expert

or the room that's only here, but it's figuring out how to

have the community design what is the new solution

to the problem, okay.

These little boxes here, these and the big boxes

is all about knowledge creation

in your learning at every step along the way, okay.

And so you're learning as you do this needs assessment,

you're learning as you start to pilot ideas

and design processes, right.

You're learning as you then move to implementation.

You're learning as you kind of walk all the way down to

kind of the big large scale intervention, the evaluation.

And so some of you might be familiar with

kind of the design thinking that's in business, right.

Where the idea kind of is.

So it's a lot more akin to that if you will,

piloting, not full scale,

I'm gonna just launch a charter school

'cause I care about solving the achievement gap problem.

Well, maybe you should start with an afterschool program.

Maybe you should start with a Saturday program.

Maybe you should scale it up so that you can learn as you go

before you actually launch a charter school, right.

And the final step is the diffusion of that innovation.

Step four would be the large scale intervention.

So it'd be the charter school, if you will.

So what's different about this process is that

number one, it starts with the co-production of design

with the community.

Number two, it requires lots of pilots

and kind of small scale interventions if you will,

that aligned to what it is that you're trying to achieve.

It requires the knowledge creation feedback loop

all along the way.

But the problem with this approach right now

is that we don't have a structure out there

to obtain or deploy resources for these phases.

Like, it's hard to get people to fund pilots

in the same way it is to fund large scale interventions.

And part of the reason is that we don't have

a set of accountability structures around pilots

in the same way that Apple does

in their R&D department, right.

So, what Apple does in creating, and I have an iPhone,

some of you have an iPhone, some of you have a Samsung

and so forth.

I think we can all agreed this is an innovation, right.

The iPhone wasn't innovation.

What they did is they took a part of their budget

and they stuck it into the R&D department.

And they knew that the R&D department

would be doing lots of these like piloting

and trying new things and testing in the market

and ideas coming from all sorts of thing places, right.

And they didn't know what that idea would be

that would solve the problem.

They weren't worried about the product at the beginning

of the process, right.

What they worried about is making sure that

they had an R&D process to solve the big problem, right.

For them is to find the big new product,

but for what we're facing in our world,

the challenges that we face, which are, I view as

the opportunities that we have to grab onto, right.

It's to find the process to get there, right.

And so we're gonna look at that in this context,

through a lot of the issues we're looking at,

whether it is like in the Promise Zones,

like collective impact process to actually achieve

the community results that the community has laid out

as the goal, we're gonna have to think about a new process.

We're gonna have to think about how to,

kind of have new accountability structures

to really transform how we do things in social sector work.

We have to redefine who are experts, right.

We're going to think about new partnerships to get there.

We've got to think about lots of new things to get there.

And so with that, we have to just re envision

what it is that we do.

Are we willing as kind of society doing social sector work,

no matter what sector you're coming from

to engage in a new process that could lead

to transformative change.

But, for the first five times you try something,

you can't point to a specific output

that changed something, right.

My argument is that we have to agree

that we need a new process

to achieve the kinds of large scale innovations.

And we have to be able to then have the structure

and trust in that process for some things, not all, okay.

And, as we'll talk about, social innovation

should not be used to solve all social problems,

but we do have some that have been so persistent

that we really do need to start a new process.