We're gonna need some serious social innovation to solve some of the communities and the world's
biggest problems. As individuals or aspiring or current leaders of non-profits, or leaders
of socially conscious businesses, learning how to tap into and effectively use social
innovation is going to be the difference between launching those ideas that change the world
and those that flop. But that's a lot of words isn't it? How do you actually DO
social innovation? That's what I'm going to talk about in this video
Hi! Welcome back. My name is Amber Melanie Smith. If we haven't met before, welcome to my channel,
and if you're back, thanks for joining me again! I'm a non-profit founder and executive director
who makes these videos here on YouTube to help people on their journeys to make a
social impact, whether that's through starting a non-profit or socially conscious business,
or leadership and service in other ways. I'm here to help be your guide to make a change.
I hope that as always you find this video useful and helpful and educational and don't forget to
give it a like and subscribe to my channel for more content all about stuff like this i also
have a website FounderToFullTime.com, where I am sharing trainings and resources for people who are
on the journey of specifically starting a non-profit so be sure to check those out
and i also want to say this is slightly different from some of my usual videos
though this topic social innovation is definitely near and dear to my heart i'd love to hear your
feedback share in the comments below what you thought of this topic if you'd like to see more
content like this or on topics like this please definitely share what you're thinking okay so as
i kind of joked before social innovation is one of those phrases that's been kind of trendy and
thrown around a bit over the past couple of years but you know me i'm all about translating big
concepts into real life action so what does social innovation really mean and what does it have to do
with the various ways we make an impact in the world starting a non-profit socially conscious
business operating as an individual out there trying to create change what does it really mean
so in this video i'm going to cover those three things one what social innovation actually means
to some concrete real life examples of social innovation at work making an impact and three
the most important one in my opinion how you can specifically harness social innovation thinking
to come up with the best ideas possible for your individual efforts non-profit efforts or
business efforts to make an impact in the world let's start with number one what does social
innovation actually mean social innovation is the process of thinking about and developing elegant
efficient effective solutions to complex social problems things like hunger and poverty
social innovation usually results in one of three things one a new and improved product two
a new and improved process for an existing system or three a new and improved program whether your
social innovation results in a product process or program though they all have one thing in common
and that is that the outcome is the same they all dramatically improve lives or change the system or
status quo for the people impacted by the problem at hand now to make this concept a little bit more
tangible i'm gonna share some real life examples of social innovation at work making an impact
example one is combating the affordable housing crisis through 3d printing of houses just like
this neighborhood in Mexico designed with 3d printing for families living under three
dollars a day example number two coming up with new processes to recycle coffee grounds so they
don't go to waste and recycling them into usable products like this company and others example
number three building a food forest in a city park where residents living below the poverty line can
forage for fruit and nuts and herbs themselves like this example in Atlanta even coming up with
new processes to solve other problems and tap into the social innovation of the whole country
like challenge.gov where people all around the U.S. can look at the government's challenges
and submit their own ideas for solutions for example number five combating urban blight
by planting flower beds by employing youth who are part of the youth juvenile court system like this
example Tha Flower Factory - how cool is that? i want you to think about all of these social
innovation examples what do they have in common [Crickets]
i'll give you a hint they all happened by combining several often unexpected different
angles they happened at the intersections of different hobbies and industries and sectors and
walks of life someone once described creativity to me in a way that really stuck with me and that is
that creativity is the process of finding patterns and connecting things that are seemingly unrelated
it's bringing together things that are different from one another to form one original thing
i think that definitely rings true with these examples let's get into how to put this
into action in your journey though how do you come up with the next great social innovation idea well
it doesn't require you to be a genius or have an ivy league education or tons and tons of resources
it's not magic in fact we can draw inspiration from a process known as design thinking in order
to come up with a step-by-step process to develop social innovation ideas so let's get into that now
okay so in the context of social impact we can define design thinking like this it's a
process for coming up with solutions to problems that prioritizes the needs of the people who are
most impacted by the problem above all else and that makes sense right because when you're in the
social impact and social change world it's all about creating a better life for those who are
impacted by the problems at hand it's less about thinking about what you want to do or what would
make the most money it's all about creating that impact for those folks so using design thinking
as our inspiration let's talk through six steps towards coming up with socially innovative ideas
step number one is to identify the problem we need to really get some clarity on what you're
trying to solve here and not just in a large sense but in a pretty specific sense understanding the
scope and the scale of the problem at hand so let's say you want to tackle food insecurity
you wouldn't stop at saying i want to tackle food insecurity no you would stop after you assess
the scale and the scope of the problem so for example i want to tackle food insecurity for kids
in elementary school in my city now i've narrowed it down a bit i know the scale of the problem it's
the kids impacted in my city so i could probably find some good data on how many kids that entails
and where they might be going to school and the locations etc where the food insecurity might be
the most prevalent since every community is unique and is going to have its own needs and assets
to lend to solving the problem it's important to think in these specific terms once you have really
identified with some specificity the problem the next step is number two empathize and empathize
means pretty much what it sounds like you want to be gathering direct information and feedback
and input from the people and the communities impacted by the problem you've identified
you don't want to guess what their problems are you want to hear from them directly because
sometimes their answers might surprise you and spark some creative thoughts or maybe they've
already identified what they need for themselves and they just need some extra help getting it your
goal in the empathize phase is to conduct surveys and interviews and anything that you can do to
get the feedback from the people impacted directly you're going to be kind of putting
together stories of what their lives look like and the challenges and the pain points surrounding the
problem at hand it's all about understanding their mindset their day-to-day needs and how
they view the problem that is the one being tackled so in the example we've been using of
food and security in a city for elementary school kids maybe you would interview teachers who are
serving at those elementary schools or the the parents of these kids or maybe even some of
the kids themselves it's all about giving them a chance to define the situation in their own terms
which brings me to step number three define in this step you're compiling all that feedback all
that information you got from the previous step empathize and starting to narrow down some of
the top pain points or challenges that have been identified you're looking for common threads and
patterns here for example in using food insecurity again let's say you surveyed the parents and the
teachers and the kids and you identified that it's quite simply a lack of a living wage from
the parents in affording the food to combat food insecurity or you might discover instead
that there are grocery stores that they could get to but they don't have any cars there's no
transportation there's no public transportation options and so there's nothing in their vicinity
that they can actually get to resulting in some kind of food desert because through the empathize
process you will have heard probably a broad range of perspectives on the issue you might
have unexpected problems and pain points emerge from the conversations that you've had which will
allow you to be truly innovative in designing a solution in partnership with those impacted
step number four is id8 and this is the fun brainstorming phase at least it's fun for me
in this phase now that you've identified maybe some of the top challenges and pain points
uh that are preventing those impacted from overcoming the problem you're gonna be working
probably with a team of other creative folks to just brainstorm all the possible solutions for
the problems at hand and the the critical part here is that there's no bad idea you're just gonna
throw everything out there and see what comes out step five is the prototype step in this phase
you're gonna create a simple model or example or pilot test of an actual product process or program
that could reasonably overcome the challenges that you identified as being the most important
at this phase you might be thinking about some of the actual implementation
of the product process or program how you would actually do it what tools and equipment and
resources and skill sets you need to pull it off but you don't want to get too deep in here
because this stage is all about just coming up with a quick simple design so that you can do
the next phase which is testing it out so let's talk about that step step six test and assess
in this test and assess phase you're going to take that prototype that simple
not too complicated model or example or pilot test of a program you're going to take it back to the
people that you interviewed earlier you're going to show it to them and you're going to get their
honest feedback is it working the way that you all imagined is it genuinely meeting the needs
of the people impacted what parts of the product or process or program need to be refined or honed
further in order to make it even better and the goal here is once you get some feedback
to continuously improve and update it until it is working at peak effectiveness one final thought
once you've designed a great product or process or program that you know is going to very effectively
and to the satisfaction of those impacted meet their needs you've got to figure out a way to make
it sustainable and viable that is the true marker of an effective social innovation if you come
up with the best idea in the world but you can't figure out a way to sustain it or cover its costs
it might not get very far in the real world so that's just something you're going to need
to keep in mind as you go through the social innovation thinking process you're going to
want to be thinking how can you cover the cost of this amazing idea that you've just had many social
innovation products or processes or programs charge a nominal fee nothing that would harm
those being served just to cover its basic costs and some find other stakeholders in the community
like other nonprofits or other businesses or even the government such as the example with the food
forest in Atlanta that i mentioned earlier who can help subsidize those costs to keep it going
i'd love to hear from you at this point what about social innovation and what we talked about here
today really stood out to you what are some of the questions that you still have that remain i'd
love to see those comments below and we'll have a great conversation and like i said before this is
a little bit of a different topic from my usual so i'd really love your honest feedback on what
you thought as i mentioned before if you are on the journey to start a non-profit check out some
of my resources at FounderToFullTime.com i also have a newsletter that i send out regularly to
changemakers and leaders of nonprofits and socially conscious businesses the link to
subscribe to that is in the description below and i invite you to join me for my newsletters there
and finally if you are on Facebook i have a group called Change the World or Bust where thousands
of people from all around the world are joining in to share what they're working on to make the world
a better place and i hope that you can join us there as well once again I'm Amber Melanie Smith
and i hope that this was interesting and helpful to you and i hope to see you next time goodbye