Accelerating our Impact: Philanthropy, Innovation and Social Change

Funders are increasingly concerned about the scale and impact of their investments,
while social change leaders struggle to figure out how to make change last. By working
together, we have an opportunity to transform our practices and relationships and
solve problems that presently seem insurmountable.
The capacity for innovation is abundant across all sectors of society, and there is a
great deal of hard-earned wisdom to draw upon. Through taking risks, harnessing
resources, sticking with change processes over time, investing in leadership, collaborating,
tracking, adjusting, and communicating, we have seen brilliant, but
isolated experiments become widely accepted and practiced. Civil rights, antismoking
campaigns, the fight against child labour, and better stewardship of natural
resources are all examples.
We have learned, however, that growing programs is only one approach, and that it
has limitations. Innovative leaders also need relevant and timely research, customized
training, and the opportunity to forge alliances with influential individuals,
institutions, and organizations. Most of all, they need unflinching support to enable
them to explore and make mistakes. These processes are essential to learning, to the
discovery of new and lasting solutions to chronic problems, and to the pursuit of the
sustainable world to which we are all committed.
Resources and tools
related to scaling up and
sustaining social innovation
“Few will have the greatness to bend
history itself; but each of us can work to
change a small portion of events, and in
the total of all those acts will be written
the history of this generation.”
Robert F. Kennedy
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