Observing the growth of a field.

Kelley

Last week’s article on social innovation in The Economist marks another milestone in the development of the field of social entrepreneurship and innovation. Ten years ago, such attention from a prominent publication like the Economist might have been imagined in the vision statements of a handful of ambitious nonprofits, but it was far from becoming a reality—nor was it certain that it ever would. To borrow the Economist’s words: “A decade ago the term [social entrepreneurship] was scarcely heard; today everyone from London to Lagos wants to be one.”

Reading this new article from the perspective of an observer of the growth of the field provides some insight into how the dreams of the earliest visionaries of social entrepreneurship have begun to be realized in recent years. Particularly notable is the article’s focus on government leaders and initiatives dedicated to social innovation, namely President Obama’s Social Innovation Fund, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Big Society Bank, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Center for Economic Opportunity. What makes social innovation newsworthy from the Economist’s perspective, it seems, is the attention it is getting from “policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic.”

I believe this is a powerful illustration of a point that Root Cause—along with a chorus of leading scholars and nonprofits including Stephen Goldsmith, Elaine Kamarck, and New Profit Inc. —has been arguing in recent years: in order for social entrepreneurs to succeed in spreading their innovations at a systemic level, they need the collaboration and support of government.

Admittedly, it has sometimes proven challenging to keep such an argument from taking flight into the abstract. Yet, that argument identifies the need for a very real set of actions that are increasingly being demonstrated by government initiatives like the Social Innovation Fund, in addition to a variety of city and state-based efforts throughout the United States such as the Office of Strategic Partnerships in Denver, Colorado, which was founded in 2004 by Mayor John Hickenlooper. In many cases, these initiatives are directing resources toward organizations with proven approaches that are ready to expand to reach many more people; they are also creating incentives to bring in additional resources from outside of government; and perhaps most importantly, they are lending prominence and credibility to the field of social innovation itself. Government attention and support, in other words, is a crucial step on the path toward transforming a little-known idea into a widespread reality.

Recognizing this recent milestone for the field of social innovation in such a light might do us some good – both from a strategic perspective and a cautionary one. Ten years ago, organizations engaged in what would come to be called social innovation faced the challenge of imagining those new ideas and demonstrating them in ways that would begin to convince others of their importance. Today, as the field of social innovation matures, those working within it will increasingly face the new kinds of challenges that accompany the realization of an idea at a systemic level. The history of ideas in the United States – including those ideas that have led to some of our greatest successes, from our own independence to civil rights – suggests that this process inevitably introduces new challenges and compromises; it also suggests that keeping the spirit of an new idea alive as it spreads requires a commitment to self-reflection, humility, and collaboration – even when success sounds loudest.

Kelley Kreitz is the Director of Knowledge.