SOCIAL INNOVATOR SERIES:

WAYS TO DESIGN, DEVELOP

AND GROW SOCIAL INNOVATION

THE OPEN
BOOK OF
SOCIAL
INNOVATION
Robin Murray
Julie Caulier-Grice
Geoff Mulgan
2 TITLE

FOREWORD
This volume – part of a series of methods and issues in social
innovation – describes the hundreds of methods and tools for
innovation being used across the world, as a first step to developing
a knowledge base.

It is the result of a major collaboration between NESTA (the National

Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) and the Young
Foundation – two organisations that are committed to the role that
social innovation can play in addressing some of the most pressing
issues of our time.

The Open Book presents a varied, vibrant picture of social innovation

in practice and demonstrates the vitality of this rapidly emerging
economy. It is fantastically rich, and demonstrates the diversity of
initiatives being led by entrepreneurs and campaigners, organisations
and movements worldwide.

Together with the other volumes in this Series, we hope that this
work provides a stronger foundation for social innovation based on
the different experiences and insights of its pioneers.

Like the social ventures it describes, we want this work to grow and
develop. Your comments, thoughts and stories are welcome at the
project website: www.socialinnovator.info

Dr Michael Harris, NESTA

Published March 2010

 CONTENTS 1

CONTENTS
Introduction 2

Section 1 The process of social innovation 11

1. Prompts, inspirations and diagnoses 14

2. Proposals and ideas 30
3. Prototyping and pilots 50
4. Sustaining 58
5. Scaling and diffusion 82
6. Systemic change 107

Section 2 Connecting people, ideas and resources 124

Section 3 Ways of supporting social innovation 141

1. Support in the public sector 146

2. Support in the grant economy 167
3. Support in the market economy 180
4. Support in the informal or household economy 195

Bibliography 209
Index 211
Acknowledgements 220
2 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION

INTRODUCTION

Hands, courtesy of Old Ford School, Room 13.

This book is about the many ways in which people are creating new and more
effective answers to the biggest challenges of our times: how to cut our carbon
footprint; how to keep people healthy; and how to end poverty.

It describes the methods and tools for innovation being used across the world
and across different sectors – the public and private sectors, civil society
and the household – in the overlapping fields of the social economy, social
entrepreneurship and social enterprise. It draws on inputs from hundreds of
organisations to document the many methods currently being used around the
world.

The materials we’ve gathered here are intended to support all those
involved in social innovation: policymakers who can help to create the right
conditions; foundations and philanthropists who can fund and support;
social organisations trying to meet social needs more effectively; and social
entrepreneurs and innovators themselves.

In other fields, methods for innovation are well understood. In medicine,

science, and to a lesser degree in business, there are widely accepted ideas,
tools and approaches. There are strong institutions and many people whose
job requires them to be good at taking ideas from inception to impact. There
is little comparable in the social field, despite the richness and vitality of social
innovation. Most people trying to innovate are aware of only a fraction of the
methods they could be using.
 INTRODUCTION 3

This book, and the series of which it is a part, attempt to fill this gap. In
this volume, we map out the hundreds of methods for social innovation as a
first step to developing a knowledge base. In the other volume of the Social
Innovator series, we look at specific methods in greater depth, exploring ways
of developing workable ideas and setting up a social venture in a way that
ensures its financial sustainability; and that its structures of accountability,
governance and ownership resonate with its social mission.1 We have also
launched an accompanying website, www.socialinnovator.info, to gather
comments, case studies and new methods.

We’re also very conscious of what’s not in here. This is very much a first cut:
there are many methods we haven’t covered; many parts of the world that
aren’t well represented (including Africa and the Middle East); and many
which we’ve only been able to describe in a very summary form.

The field we cover is broad. Social innovation doesn’t have fixed boundaries:
it happens in all sectors, public, non-profit and private. Indeed, much of the
most creative action is happening at the boundaries between sectors, in fields
as diverse as fair trade, distance learning, hospices, urban farming, waste
reduction and restorative justice.

Nevertheless, definitions have their place. Our interest is in innovations that

are social both in their ends and in their means. Specifically, we define social
innovations as new ideas (products, services and models) that simultaneously
meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations. In
other words, they are innovations that are both good for society and enhance
society’s capacity to act.2

The context for social innovation

Why has social innovation moved centre stage over the last decade? The main
reason is that existing structures and policies have found it impossible to crack
some of the most pressing issues of our times – such as climate change, the
worldwide epidemic of chronic disease, and widening inequality.

Intractable social problems

The classic tools of government policy on the one hand, and market solutions
on the other, have proved grossly inadequate. The market, by itself, lacks the
incentives and appropriate models to solve many of these issues. Where there
are market failures (due to non-competitive markets, externalities or public
4 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION

goods), these tasks have fallen either to the state or civil society. However,
current policies and structures of government have tended to reinforce old
rather than new models. The silos of government departments are poorly
suited to tackling complex problems which cut across sectors and nation
states. Civil society lacks the capital, skills and resources to take promising
ideas to scale.

Rising costs
The prospective cost of dealing with these issues threatens to swamp public
budgets, and in the case of climate change, or healthcare in the US, private
budgets as well. To take only one instance, if radical policies cannot stem the
increase in chronic diseases, the cost of healthcare is forecast to rise from 9
per cent to 12.5 per cent of GDP in the UK in 15 years and, according to the
US Congressional Budget Office, from 16 per cent of GDP in 2007 to 25 per
cent in 2025, rising to 37 per cent in 2050. As in climate change, pollution
control, waste reduction, poverty and welfare programmes, and other fields
such as criminal justice or traffic congestion, the most effective policies
are preventative. But effective prevention has been notoriously difficult to
introduce, in spite of its apparent economic and social benefits.

Old paradigms
As during earlier technological and social transformations, there is a
disjunction between existing structures and institutions and what’s needed
now. This is as true for the private as for the social economy. New paradigms
tend to flourish in areas where the institutions are most open to them, and
where the forces of the old are weak. So, for example, there is more innovation
around self-management of diseases and public health than around hospitals;
more innovation around recycling and energy efficiency than around large
scale energy production; more innovation around public participation than in
parliaments and assemblies; and more innovation around active ageing than
around pension provision.

An emerging social economy

Much of this innovation is pointing towards a new kind of economy. It
combines some old elements and many new ones. We describe it as a ‘social
economy’ because it melds features which are very different from economies
based on the production and consumption of commodities. Its key features
include:

• The intensive use of distributed networks to sustain and manage

 INTRODUCTION 5

relationships, helped by broadband, mobile and other means of

communication.

• Blurred boundaries between production and consumption.

• An emphasis on collaboration and on repeated interactions, care and

maintenance rather than one-off consumption.

• A strong role for values and missions.

Two themes – sometimes clashing, sometimes coinciding – give it its

distinctive character. One comes from technology: the spread of networks;
creation of global infrastructures for information; and social networking tools.
The other comes from culture and values: the growing emphasis on the human
dimension; on putting people first; giving democratic voice; and starting with
the individual and relationships rather than systems and structures.

Much of this economy is formed around distributed systems, rather than

centralised structures. It handles complexity not by standardisation and
simplification imposed from the centre, but by distributing complexity to the
margins – to the local managers and workers on the shop floor, as well as to
the consumers themselves.

As a result, the role of the consumer changes from a passive to an active

player: to a producer in their own right. Retail purchases that have been cast
as the end point of the linear process of mass production are redefined as
part of a circular process of household production and reproduction. The so-
called consumer doubles as a domestic producer – a cook, a mother, a carer, a
shopper, a driver, a nurse, a gardener, a teacher or student – entailing so much
of what makes us human. This domestic sphere has previously been seen as
outside the economy, as too complex and ungovernable, but has now come to
be recognised as economically critical, with all the needs for support, tools,
skills and advice that being a producer entails.

In both the market and state economies, the rise of distributed networks
has coincided with a marked turn towards the human, the personal and the
individual. This has brought a greater interest in the quality of relationships
(what Jim Maxmin and Shoshana Zuboff call the ‘support economy’); it has
led to lively innovation around personalisation (from new types of mentor to
personal accounts); a new world rich in information and feedback (such as
AMEE, tracking carbon outputs in 150 different countries); growing interest
6 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION

in pathways (for example from early childhood into adulthood) and service
journeys (whether of a patient through a health system or a passenger through
an airport).

With this emphasis on the individual has come an interest in their experience
as well as in formal outcomes, in subjective feedback as well as the
quantitative metrics of the late 20th century state and economy (hence the
rise of innovations like the Expert Patients programmes, or Patient Opinion).
Public policy has also turned towards the household, through innovations like
nurse-family partnerships and green concierges.

What is distinct about social innovation?

What is it about social innovation which is distinct from innovation in different
fields? The definition we provided above emphasises that social innovation
is distinctive both in its outcomes and in its relationships, in the new forms
of cooperation and collaboration that it brings. As a result, the processes,
metrics, models and methods used in innovation in the commercial or
technological fields, for example, are not always directly transferable to the
social economy.

Measuring success
Measuring success in the social economy is particularly problematic. In the
market the simple and generally unambiguous measures are scale, market
share and profit. In the social field the very measures of success may be
contested as well as the tools for achieving results. Is it good or bad to cut car
use? Is it good or bad to replace professional care by voluntary care? Is a good
school one that excels at exam results? Is it always a good thing for an NGO to
grow bigger? The answers are never straightforward and are themselves the
subject of argument, evaluation and assessment. As we show, there has been
a great deal of innovation around metrics – from tools to judge the impact of
a particular project or programme to meta-analyses and assessments of much
larger processes of social change.

Organisational forms
And then there are the organisational forms for innovation itself. We show
that many innovations take shape within organisations – public agencies,
social enterprises, mutuals, co-ops, charities, companies as well as loose
associations. But the many examples set out below also show a field that is
grappling with how to escape the constraints of organisation so as to make
innovation itself open and social: posting ideas and welcoming responses from
 INTRODUCTION 7

anyone; involving users at every stage as well as experts, bureaucrats and

professionals; designing platforms which make it easy to assemble project
teams or virtual organisations.

Organisational forms are important for any kind of innovation, but particularly
for the ones that are truly systemic in nature. As we show these invariably
involve more than a new service or model: they also create a change in
relationships of power, and a change in how people think and see. Invariably,
systems changes stretch far beyond the boundaries of any single organisation.

Coalitions and networks

Coalitions and networks are increasingly turning out to be the key to
successful change (this is well described in Stephen Goldsmith’s forthcoming
book on civic entrepreneurship in the USA). Whereas in business the firm is
the key agent of innovation, in the social field the drive is more likely to come
from a wider network, perhaps linking some commissioners in the public
sector, providers in social enterprises, advocates in social movements, and
entrepreneurs in business. This is one of many reasons why it’s misleading to
translate business models directly into the social field. For example, trying too
hard to privatise ideas, or protect their IP, is more likely to stall the innovation
process than to galvanise it. But public structures can be equally inhibiting
if they try to squeeze a new idea into the logic of siloed departments or
professions.

No one knows what will emerge from the feverish experiment, trial and error
and rapid learning that are accompanying the birth of this new economy. But
we can be certain that its emergence will encourage ever more interest in how
innovation can best be supported, orchestrated and harnessed to speed up the
invention and adoption of better solutions.

Methods
Innovation isn’t just a matter of luck, eureka moments or alchemy. Nor is it
exclusively the province of brilliant individuals. Innovation can be managed,
supported and nurtured. And anyone, if they want, can become part of it.

These are some of the key messages that we’ve taken from the most creative
thinkers about innovation – such as John Kao and Rosabeth Moss Kanter,
Mark Moore, Manuel Castells and Roberto Unger. They have shown that social
innovation is a relatively open field and a relatively open process. Certainly,
some are more equal than others – and governments with large budgets and
8 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION

law-making powers can achieve large-scale change more easily than small
community groups. Yet most social change is neither purely top-down nor
bottom-up. It involves alliances between the top and the bottom, or between
what we call the ‘bees’ (the creative individuals with ideas and energy) and
the ‘trees’ (the big institutions with the power and money to make things
happen to scale).

In what follows we describe many hundreds of methods being used for

innovation around the world. They range from ways of thinking to very
practical tools for finance or design. Some of them are specific to sectors –
government, business or charity. Some are specific to national cultures. But
there are many common patterns, and one of the purposes of this project has
been to encourage cross-pollination.

Much innovation comes from the creative blending of ideas from multiple
sources. For example, bringing together diagnostic computer programmes, call
centres and nurses to provide new kinds of healthcare; bringing together the
very old idea of ‘circles of support’ brought within the criminal justice system;
or bringing the idea of enforceable rights into the world of the family and
childhood.

The tools of innovation will also develop through creative blending and
recombination of disparate elements and ideas. We’re already seeing, for
example, innovators combining the funding methods used for science and
venture capital with those from tendering and grant giving. Others are
combining ethnography, visualisation techniques from product design, user-
involvement ideas from social movements, and commissioning methods
from the public sector. Business has already adopted some of the models for
mobilising networks of users that were developed by the third sector in the
1960s and 1970s. Conversely, some NGOs are learning from venture capital
not only how to finance emerging ideas, but also how to kill off ones that aren’t
advancing fast enough to free up resources. Our hope is that by gathering
many methods together we will accelerate these processes of creative
recombination and experimentation.

The structure of the book

To structure the many methods we’ve collected we look at them through three
different lenses:

In Part 1 of this book, we look at the processes of innovation. We describe

the stages of innovation as spreading outwards from prompts and ideas to
 INTRODUCTION 9

scale and growth. Some innovations do develop in this linear way, and we
find this framework useful for thinking more rigorously about methods. But
many do not develop in a purely linear fashion: some go quickly to scale and
then have to adapt fast in the light of experience; often, the end use of an
innovation will be very different from the one that was originally envisaged;
sometimes action precedes understanding and sometimes taking action
crystallises the idea. And always there is an iterative circling back as new
insights change the nature of the innovation. Nevertheless, these processes
do indicate a trend in the development of an innovation and we hope that
the spiral model can provide a common language for thinking about how to
support innovation more systematically.

In Part 2, we look at the key institutions which help to make innovation

happen: funds, agencies, brokers, incubators, and intermediaries. In the social
field these institutions remain much less developed than in other fields. But
they are multiplying rapidly, and bringing new lessons in how best to link ideas
with their best applications.

In Part 3, we look at the enabling conditions for innovation, including

those within each economy: the public sector, the grant economy of civil
society, the private sector, and the household. Some of these conditions are
about structures and laws, others are about cultures.

This book is a work in progress. It is very much a snapshot, designed to

encourage further contributions. The methods for social innovation should
be a common property, and should evolve through shared learning. Social
innovations often struggle against the odds – all of our chances of success will
increase if we can share our experiences and quickly reflect on what works
and what doesn’t.
10 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION

End notes
1. Murray, R., Caulier-Grice, J. and Mulgan, G. (2009) ‘Social Venturing.’ The Social Innovator
Series. London: NESTA.
2. In their article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Phills, Deiglmeier and Miller
define social innovation as: “a novel solution to a social problem that is more effective,
efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues
primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals. A social innovation can be a
product, production process, or technology (much like innovation in general), but it can also
be a principle, an idea, a piece of legislation, a social movement, an intervention, or some
combination of them.” NESTA defines social innovation as: “innovation that is explicitly for
the social and public good. It is innovation inspired by the desire to meet social needs which
can be neglected by traditional forms of private market provision and which have often
been poorly served or unresolved by services organised by the state. Social innovation can
take place inside or outside of public services. It can be developed by the public, private or
third sectors, or users and communities – but equally, some innovation developed by these
sectors does not qualify as social innovation because it does not directly address major social
challenges.” The OECD’s LEED Programme (Local Economic and Employment Development),
which includes a Forum on Social Innovations, has developed its own definition. The Forum
defines social innovation as that which concerns: “conceptual, process or product change,
organisational change and changes in financing, and can deal with new relationships with
stakeholders and territories. ‘Social innovation’ seeks new answers to social problems by:
identifying and delivering new services that improve the quality of life of individuals and
communities; identifying and implementing new labour market integration processes, new
competencies, new jobs, and new forms of participation, as diverse elements that each
contribute to improving the position of individuals in the workforce.”
 THE PROCESS OF SOCIAL INNOVATION 11

SECTION 1:
THE PROCESS
OF SOCIAL
INNOVATION

1 Prompts

2 Proposals

6 Systemic
3 Prototypes change

4 Sustaining
5 Scaling
12 THE OPEN BOOK OF SOCIAL INNOVATION

The six stages of social innovation

We have identified six stages that take ideas from inception to impact.
These stages are not always sequential (some innovations jump straight into
‘practice’ or even ‘scaling’), and there are feedback loops between them. They
can also be thought of as overlapping spaces, with distinct cultures and skills.
They provide a useful framework for thinking about the different kinds of
support that innovators and innovations need in order to grow.

1) Prompts, inspirations and diagnoses. In this stage we include all the

factors which highlight the need for innovation – such as crisis, public
spending cuts, poor performance, strategy – as well as the inspirations
which spark it, from creative imagination to new evidence. This stage
involves diagnosing the problem and framing the question in such a
way that the root causes of the problem, not just its symptoms, will
be tackled. Framing the right question is halfway to finding the right
solution. This means going beyond symptoms to identifying the causes of
a particular problem.

2) Proposals and ideas. This is the stage of idea generation. This can
involve formal methods – such as design or creativity methods to widen
the menu of options available. Many of the methods help to draw in
insights and experiences from a wide range of sources.

3) rototyping and pilots. This is where ideas get tested in practice. This
P
can be done through simply trying things out, or through more formal
pilots, prototypes and randomised controlled trials. The process of
refining and testing ideas is particularly important in the social economy
because it’s through iteration, and trial and error, that coalitions gather
strength (for example, linking users to professionals) and conflicts are
resolved (including battles with entrenched interests). It’s also through
these processes that measures of success come to be agreed upon.

4) ustaining. This is when the idea becomes everyday practice. It

S
involves sharpening ideas (and often streamlining them), and identifying
income streams to ensure the long term financial sustainability of the
firm, social enterprise or charity, that will carry the innovation forward.
In the public sector this means identifying budgets, teams and other
resources such as legislation.
 THE PROCESS OF SOCIAL INNOVATION 13

5) Scaling and diffusion. At this stage there are a range of strategies

for growing and spreading an innovation – from organisational growth,
through licensing and franchising to federations and looser diffusion.
Emulation and inspiration also play a critical role in spreading an idea or
practice. Demand matters as much as supply: how market demand, or
demand from commissioners and policymakers is mobilised to spread a
successful new model. This process is often referred to as ‘scaling’, and
in some cases the word is appropriate, as the innovation is generalised
within an organisation or the organisation itself expands. But scaling is
a concept from the mass production age, and innovations take hold in
the social economy in many other ways, whether through inspiration and
emulation, or through the provision of support and know-how from one
to another in a more organic and adaptive kind of growth.

6) Systemic change. This is the ultimate goal of social innovation.

Systemic change usually involves the interaction of many elements:
social movements, business models, laws and regulations, data and
infrastructures, and entirely new ways of thinking and doing. Systemic
change generally involves new frameworks or architectures made up of
many smaller innovations. Social innovations commonly come up against
the barriers and hostility of an old order. Pioneers may sidestep these
barriers, but the extent to which they can grow will often depend on the
creation of new conditions to make the innovations economically viable.
These conditions include new technologies, supply chains, institutional
forms, skills, and regulatory and fiscal frameworks. Systemic innovation
commonly involves changes in the public sector, private sector, grant
economy and household sector, usually over long periods of time.

In this part of the book we explore each of these stages in depth, with a
section listing some of the main methods used for each one.