What is Social Innovation?

Social Innovation in Nonprofits

Homeboy Industries​ was created in East Los Angeles during the height of the 1980s gang and drug epidemics. At the time, young people in gangs or ex-gang members faced little support from institutions. Homeboy Industries innovated to change that with a goal of providing training and career opportunities for former gang members to transform their lives.

Today, they follow a three-part strategy:

1. Standing up for the humanity and rehabilitation of gang members

2. Helping them to heal from their own traumas

3. Investing in their future

In a time when most communities responded to gang members as simple criminals, Homeboy Industries offered an alternative to the traditional prison and law enforcement approach. In 2021 alone, they enrolled 472 former gang members in their 18-month job training program, provided 4,233 gang-affiliated tattoo removal treatments and sponsored 1,833 therapy sessions. Today, the Global Homeboy Network includes more than 400 organizations around the world helping similarly disenfranchised people and providing others with a hopeful future.

Social Innovation in Business

Patagonia started out as a small business operating out of founder Yvon Chouinard’s parents’ backyard and the trunk of his car. An avid climber and outdoorsman from a young age, Yvon had a knack for identifying areas for improvement in his climbing gear. 

A pioneer in conscious business, Yvon revolutionized standard attire for the mountaineering community, popularizing new materials that withstood the rigors of climbing and met weather fluctuation requirements, all while retaining their flexibility and functionality. It was at this point that Patagonia became a thought leader in the mountaineering and outdoor recreation space.

But perhaps Patagonia’s greatest claim to social innovation is their sustained effort, from the time they were a small company to now as a large business, to preserve environmental resources and reverse climate change. Patagonia continually exceeds their pledge to environmental responsibility by announcing last year that “Earth is now our only shareholder.” In a letter from Yvon, he states that Patagonia is now using the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the Earth and fight climate change: “Each year, the money we make after reinvesting in the business will be distributed as a dividend to help fight the crisis.”

Social Innovation in Government

Social innovation can be leveraged at every level of government to benefit the populations it serves. One example is former Mayor Michael Tubbs’ initiative to provide universal basic income (UBI) to the people of Stockton, CA — one of only a few U.S. programs of its kind in the last several decades.

Beginning in 2019, Tubbs initiated an 18-month UBI pilot program to increase income stability and offer a financial lifeline to low-income residents. 125 people were chosen to receive $500 per month through February 2021. While the concept of UBI is not new, implementing and studying this program signals social innovation in government for the United States, a country that has traditionally expressed reservations about this kind of system.

However, the Stockton pilot program appears to disprove existing fears about how beneficiaries will spend the income. A preliminary analysis of the reporting data suggests that recipients primarily used the money for necessities (e.g. food, rent, utilities, gas, medical care and emergency situations).

Fundamentally, Mayor Tubbs sees this program as a “rejection of the scarcity mindset,” and an investment in everyday Americans. The success of the program has fueled renewed interest in establishing and studying similar programs across the United States. Currently, more than 40 mayors have joined the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income organization and have pledged to support UBI programs as a means of alleviating poverty and working toward shared prosperity in the U.S. 

Social Innovation in B Corps

Innovators (like Patagonia) have pushed for the emergence of benefit corporations (B Corps), which are for-profit companies legally designated as organizations committed to creating public benefit. Unlike other corporations, which are expected to make business decisions primarily with financial profit in mind, B Corps are required to consider the impact of their decisions on additional stakeholders, not just shareholders.

B Corps are also held to additional reporting, transparency and accountability standards. The companies are obligated to publicly release an annual benefit report detailing their overall social and environmental performance based on a third-party standard.

King Arthur Flour is one example of a B Corp that is leveraging social innovation to benefit its stakeholders. King Arthur Flour has been providing high-quality baking staples to professionals and home cooks since 1790, however, what makes King Arthur a truly remarkable company is their commitment to their employees.

In 1996, King Arthur’s owners sold 100 percent of the company to its employees. The owners prioritized maintaining the family-centered work culture and felt that by selling it to their employees, it would “[bring] out the best in people.” The transaction was completed in 2004, and King Arthur became a founding member of the B Corp community in 2007, solidifying “its commitment to all stakeholders: shareholders, business partners, the community and the environment.” Since selling the company to its employees, King Arthur Flour has experienced enormous growth, with annual sales topping $100 million.

Social Innovation in Society

Not all social innovations happen within formal organizations; many begin as changes that are adopted by individuals and groups of people because they are useful in their efforts to create change. This is what we see through the countless innovations made possible by the rise and spread of new digital technologies.

Camera-equipped smartphones are used to document important events and to spread the word about critical social issues. Social media has emerged as an amplifier of some of humanity’s best (and worst) attributes. While there is plenty of innovation in these popular examples, a whole host of technologies are making a difference as well.

Drones, for example, are upending the way we think about space. New research by Kroc School Associate Professor Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick has documented the many ways drones are being used to amplify the voice of the people, and to hold the powerful to account. In his publication, The Good Drone, Choi-Fitzpatrick examines “the way small-scale drones — as well as satellites, kites, and balloons — are used for a great many things, including documenting human rights abuses, estimating demonstration crowd size, supporting anti-poaching advocacy and advancing climate change research.”

Social Innovation in Education

Access to quality education is one of the most fundamental challenges for humanity as well as one of the greatest opportunities for its development. For ​Khan Academy​ founder Salman Khan, free access to a quality education became a calling. In 2006, Khan began posting math tutoring videos on YouTube specifically to assist friends and family members. However, it soon became obvious that a large portion of the public wanted online tutoring lessons as well, and on a variety of subjects.

Three years later, Khan Academy was officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization, and Khan quit his hedge fund job to lead the organization full time. After nine months of living off his own savings, he began to receive significant donations that allowed him to build an organization with global reach. In the past decade, Khan Academy has uploaded over 13,000 videos covering more than 400 courses. The company has also registered over 90 million users who speak 40+ languages.

Teachers in elementary schools across the U.S. and globally have used the lessons available on Khan Academy to “flip” their classrooms. Many teachers have assigned students to watch Khan Academy lessons so that they could practice and review the concepts covered in class (what traditionally has been homework). To the delight of teachers, students and parents, Khan Academy is democratizing education and improving it at the same time.

Grassroots solutions, developed by the people experiencing the issue, often prove most effective at tackling the complex and evolving challenges the world is facing. Khan Academy is a perfect example of a decentralized local solution that has been scaled up to solve a massive world challenge.