Discovering the obvious

Innovation is about what’s new and what’s next.  

It’s about that exciting leap forward into uncharted territory.

Innovation is also about what works… better.  

It’s about that incremental step forward that makes old ideas new again and repurposes the familiar into the unexpected.

Innovation – whether small or incremental, large or disruptive – is about change.

• The social sector is rich in innovation. Every day people all over the world meet their own needs and those of others, including scarcity and hardship, with ingenious new ideas and adaptations of materials and concepts to their particular purposes.

• Too many social innovations seem episodic and isolated. Often those innovations created out of immediate and urgent needs tend to stay in too small a sphere without appropriate resources to grow to scale.

• A systematic commitment to innovation seems to yield greater benefits to more people over time. With systematic innovation, needs and opportunities are carefully understood, the search for ideas is open, and the culture nurtures the development and scaling of innovations to yield a continuous pattern of innovation. The business sector and some areas of government have typically made the boldest commitments to systematic innovation; yet the social sector – on the front lines of so many of our planet’s and our communities’ most challenging situations – is only just beginning to explore more systematic approaches.

• New technologies are changing the social sector. Emerging technological tools give us new options for how we connect with others, share information, and do our work. Technology literally is changing how we think.