20 years ago this spring, in the first issue of the magazine. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Susan Beresford, president of the Ford Foundation at the time, called for fundamental social change to address a system that was “unfair, unnecessary, or simply outdated.”1
In the decades since, social innovators have realized much of Beresford’s vision. Multilateral partnerships and broad-based economic development efforts have cut global poverty in half.2 82 million more girls3 Today, people across the Global South attend school. Meanwhile, maternal mortality decreased by more than 38%.Four Saving millions of lives.
At the same time, changes in markets, environments, cultures, and institutions have fundamentally changed the way we live and work together. The percentage of people around the world who have access to the Internet has increased five times.Five And socially responsible investing in the United States increased by more than $12 trillion.6
But despite all the changes, Beresford’s challenge remains urgent. For too long, advances in innovation have too often been accompanied by unfair and unnecessary increases in inequality. Take poverty, for example. Although the number of people living in extreme poverty has fallen dramatically, the gap between rich and poor is widening around the world.7 Resources are increasingly being consolidated into the hands of a small number of people, primarily those living in the Global North.
As a result, hard-won global health and well-being has been set back, and the economic impact of international conflict has left 345 million people with life-threatening food insecurity.8 My own field of philanthropy is not unrelated. Despite significant progress in philanthropy in devising new ways to fund and identify grant recipients, the sector’s resources remain concentrated in white-led organizations headquartered in the Global North. ing.
Innovation alone bridges the gap between countries that have resources and those that don’t, between countries that are prioritized by international decision-making and funding and those that are left off the global agenda. It’s clear that you can’t. For those of us who have spent our lives focusing on social change and social impact, this is a monumental turning point.
As we celebrate the past 20 years, SSIR— and look forward to the next two things — we must redouble our efforts to ensure that innovation and equality are not mutually exclusive, and support individuals, organizations, and ideas who use the former to pursue the latter. It doesn’t have to be.
Today, that commitment finds its fullest expression in three major cross-cutting reforms. Solutions that take the long-term view of progress and strengthen civil society. And there is growing support and global attention for local leadership, particularly in the Global South. These reforms will help reverse the prevailing scenario in philanthropy and other key areas. And together they have the potential to fix social innovation for the better, ensuring that new solutions dismantle rather than reproduce the structures that drive and sustain inequality. can.
Approaching innovation with an intersectional lens
First, we need to approach innovation from an intersectional perspective, centering those most marginalized by inequality. As experts, we understand the landscape of our field, including potential obstacles to success and new opportunities for growth. At the same time, we do not always have the equally important knowledge that comes from direct experience.
Those directly affected by inequality and closest to its myriad effects can diagnose the everyday impact of structural barriers and suggest the most effective solutions to urgent needs. . Furthermore, given that discrimination and inequality are exacerbated at the intersections of race, gender, disability, class, and other marginalized identities, individuals who hold these multiple identities are essential to bringing about change. They are best at building strong partnerships and collaborations. By effectively organizing the entire community.
In other words, complex and intersecting problems require intersecting solutions. To break down inequality, social innovators need to understand how identities shape our exposure to systemic harms and build the strength to resist those harms. Consider, for example, the uneven political and social impacts of new technologies. These technologies have created opportunities, but they have also amplified disinformation and division, led to biased algorithms and broader surveillance. A group of scholars, organizers, educators, advocates, and artists created Just to “rethink assumptions about who imagines, designs, builds, and oversees the technologies that will shape our future.” We developed Tech Fellowships.9
The first group of Just Tech Fellows are leveraging their experience and expertise to reduce barriers to accessing, maintaining, and customizing equipment for people with disabilities. Analyzing the impact of cancer technology on black students in public schools. Among other efforts, we will map surveillance practices and techniques targeting marginalized communities.
By centering those who have first-hand experience with the flaws and failures of our current systems, we can replace inequity with inclusion and innovate more effectively at every turn.
Leverage innovation for the long term
We must also recognize that progress often leads to backlash, two steps forward and one step back. With this in mind, thoughtful social innovation, shaped by foresight and principles, can provide a stable foundation for civil society and important guardrails against democratic backsliding.
Consider the progress society has made over the past 20 years. Each subsequent “victory” is accompanied by an equal and opposite conflict. Today, democracy is in decline worldwide and hard-won rights are at risk. A democratic backsliding on this scale puts equality everywhere at risk. It would be short-sighted to allow this backlash to continue, as a healthy democracy is a critical prerequisite for lasting social change.
Social innovation is already providing some much-needed resistance to creeping authoritarianism globally. However, most important social innovations take 20 to 30 years to become established. Our mission is to ‘flip the game’ in philanthropy, from short-term grantmaking to long-term support and long-term strategy.
From strengthening economic equality to supporting civic space, long-term cross-sector cooperation can provide comprehensive support to democracy. At the Ford Foundation, we are building that collaborative infrastructure through programs like Weaving Resilience, her $80 million initiative supporting strong civil society organizations across the Global South. Together with our partners on the ground in eight regions, we have committed to continued support to help organizations on the front lines of the fight for social justice protect the civic space they need to thrive.
Social innovators are uniquely placed to convene new initiatives and foster these connections, and are already working at the intersections between sectors and disciplines. Their insights can shape innovations that look to low-hanging wins to preserve democracy over the long term.
Drive innovation where it matters most
Taking a long-term view will require new funding strategies, partnerships and, importantly, new leadership. To that end, we embrace ideas, individuals, It must support the strength, visibility, power, and influence of the organization. At the expense of the Global South.
By looking beyond our own backyards, we can transform the world around us, especially in the Global South, where countless innovative individuals and institutions are already laying the foundations for a more just and inclusive world. We can help local leaders build strength, visibility, and power.
By providing grants to organizations representing millions of domestic and home-based informal workers, street vendors and waste pickers, we are a global leader focused on empowering the working poor, especially women. We take inspiration from organizations like WIEGO, a research, policy and advocacy network. In over 90 countries. These undocumented workers are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and have been devastated by a lack of social and labor protection during this crisis. Her first $25 million in funding from the Ford Foundation will help ensure undocumented workers have a seat at the table to have their voices, demands, and needs heard at the national and global levels. Already, their activities are shaping international labor policy at the highest councils of power.Ten
Equally, we are moved by grassroots organizations like Indonesia’s Vaccine Access Coalition. Indonesia’s Vaccine Access Coalition is working with civil society, indigenous communities, disability organizations and the government to fully vaccinate 80 per cent of the total population. In every corner of the globe, new leaders are confronting inequality in creative and inclusive ways. We need to invest in and scale their work, rather than trying to reinvent it.
Taken together, these three reforms will help address the root causes of inequality in all areas, including philanthropy itself. And by working in partnership, we can chart and follow a clear roadmap for change over the next 20 years and beyond.
If the challenge of the past two decades was to eliminate unfair, unnecessary, and outdated systems, the challenge of today is to replace these systems with systems that are more inclusive, fairer, and more just. That’s it. The foundation of eternal justice for all.
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