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Polycrisis Strategy
ARTICLE | Grappling With Systems Collapse
How should social change leaders understand the potential for impact and strategize when multiple chaos factors are combining to rapidly destabilize systems? The authors of this article diagram four possible models for action in times of potential collapse—protective, blocking, disruptive, and creative. “Most importantly,” they write, “we hope these models will spur the social change community to think beyond the status quo and commit now to the work of repair and reimagination.”
Impact Measurement
ARTICLE | How to Measure Narrative Change
Many social change leaders understand the power of stories to transform how people think and act. But how do you know if your organization’s narrative work is making a difference? Social change is complex, nonlinear, and long-term, and it isn’t always possible to fully trace the effects of a single campaign, media piece, or storytelling effort. But as strategists Yewande O. Addie, David Hanson, Emily Melnick, Melody Mohebi, and Annie Neimand argue, organizations can take steps to connect the dots between the stories they tell and measurable shifts in beliefs, behaviors, culture, and institutions.
Aid Cuts and Africa
ARTICLE | Big Aid Is Over
Where will cuts to foreign assistance hurt the most? Mulago Foundation CEO Kevin Starr argues it is Africa, where governments have little to spend. But the present moment may provide an opportunity for a long-overdue reorientation, as funders and innovators focus on interventions and strategies designed for what African governments can and will do. Doing so will require new approaches to the what, where, and how of scaling effective solutions.
The Big Shift
ARTICLE | Helping NGOs and Funders Make the “Big Shift” to Working With Government
Social sector leaders Rakesh Rajani and Tim Hanstad offer timely advice on making NGO-government partnerships work. Why do these relationships often fail to get off the ground? For one, a frequent failure by social innovators to understand the constraints, incentives, and motivations within government systems. To successfully navigate the “big shift” of working with government to scale impact, NGOs need to go beyond minor adjustments and develop a new set of mindsets and capacities.
Power in Numbers
ARTICLE | Emerging Approaches to Massive Action
Massive collaboration—the coming together of individuals, groups, and organizations at scale to exert influence on political and social events—is a timeless strategy for social change. What is notable today, according to large-scale social change expert Joe McCannon, is the potential scope and rate of massive actions. Ready-made platforms for collaboration and broad connectivity mean that staggeringly fast and creative mobilization is possible. “The social sector should better understand the potential and risks associated with these approaches and learn how they can be harnessed to advance justice and agency, confront authoritarian forces, and more fully redistribute power across society.”
Read more stories by SSIR Editors.