Growing social innovations – finding the key

Why do some innovations, like village-level microcredit, distance learning or street papers sold by the homeless, spread while others languish? In spite of much interest and considerable debate about how to scale up promising innovations, no one really knows. A research project by the UK-based Young Foundation on growing social innovations is an attempt to find an answer.

The project combines four elements: detailed case studies of organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous, Teach First and the Big Issue; a synthesis of the literature on growth, including insights from business studies, biology, economics and sociology; development of an analytic model; and a guide to help funders and innovators themselves.

The heart of the study, published as In and out of Sync, is a growth map on the relationship between demand for innovations and their supply. Without ‘effective demand’ from those with the money to pay for it there is no chance of an innovation succeeding. If demand is missing, it has to be cultivated. It may come from individual consumers (as in the case of fair trade) or public agencies (as with new models of social care).

The next requirement is ‘effective supply’. Often promising projects turn out to be too dependent on a charismatic individual, or too expensive to be replicated. Making supply effective usually involves hard work, testing, refining and adapting the idea. There also needs to be an effective strategy for combining the two: this may involve changes to laws or regulations, or alliances, or better evidence.

A critical issue is the choice of organizational approach to spread the innovation: the options range through loose diffusion to licensing, franchises and federations, organizational growth, and the deliberate goal of being taken over by a larger organization. The research suggests that social entrepreneurs and funders tend to put too much faith in organizational growth and franchising. Most of the biggest impact achieved by social innovations (and the rare examples of systemic change) has come from looser diffusion or copying, and mutually reinforcing actions by governments, movements and entrepreneurs.

Geoff Mulgan is Director of the Young Foundation. Email geoff.mulgan@youngfoundation.org

For more information
To download In and out of sync: the challenge of growing social innovations, go to www.youngfoundation.org