Theory of Change and Methods

What is Social Innovation?

A process that leads to relevant social innovation involves listening, learning, and co-creating promising solutions to complex problems that defy easy answers. We call these “wicked” problems. Wicked problems are full of tensions and defy simplistic answers. They are characterized by a low level of agreement on what the root of the problem is and often entail contradicting perspectives on what might be the best way to address it.

Simple problem: baking a cake (follow the recipe and you’ll arrive at the same solution every time)

Complicated problem: sending a rocket to the moon (work the problem long enough, break down the component parts, and complicated solutions can be found)

Complex problem: raising a well-rounded human (no two babies are the same way, despite being raised the same). Recipes, equations, and formulas won’t cut it with a complex challenge.

Tackling wicked and complex problems is emotional, messy work. It defies definition and is filled with uncertainty. Once prototypes have been tested, a solution only becomes a true social innovation when it spreads and scales at a systemic level. This is a point of debate in the social innovation practitioner community. Often, local solutions won’t scale and their strength remains local. Tactically, social innovation solutions strive to tackle problems at their root. Social innovators are open to experimenting with new pathways and possibilities. Good social innovators don’t only go after the new; they look at traditions and what is already working, as well as question status-quo assumptions. As Canadian social innovator Al Etmanski says, “Innovation is a mix of the old and the new with a dash of surprise.”

TYPOLOGY OF PROBLEMS HUMANS TEND TO TACKLE

Simple Complicated Complex

adapted from Cynefin Framework

What are Social Innovation Labs?

If social innovation is the theory, labs are the practice and process of uncovering promising solutions. The central principle is that solutions are not known at the outset of the process but emerge through engaging multiple stakeholders, and therefore have potential for deeper systemic impact. Another key principle is not simply talking about ideas and possibilities, but making ideas tangible and testable. This helps uncover assumptions. By the time a prototype is ready for a pilot, it has been vetted and tested by people for whom a solution is meant to support or serve.

Is Social Innovation Just A Trendy New Fad?

Nope. Social innovation may be new in some ways but it is also a form of problem solving that is deeply rooted in ancient traditions around the world. As it involves broadening the view of a current problem and what possible solutions may be, social innovation can be considered non-linear, holistic, and unconventional by traditional STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) problem-solving standards.

The tools and methods of social innovation, such as design thinking and co-creation, are increasingly employed by the government and non-profit sectors in Canada. Social innovation often involves win-wins: for example, think of a recycling program which addresses littering, material waste, and income generation all in a single “blue box.” Social innovation can also involve remixing existing ideas to achieve new results. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, for instance, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering the concept of “microcredit,” which helps impoverished entrepreneurs looking for financing. Social innovation can be used to convey emotional experiences as well. The Kairos Blanket Exercise is a powerful method to explain the broad strokes of Indigenous history in Canada through a unique exercise that involves shifting blankets and physical positions. Social innovation recognizes that a single individual is not the cause of complex challenges nor the only source of a promising intervention. In many ways, collective problem solving in Indigenous communities has been around for thousands of years, striving to meet all the challenges that might affect the community. Indigenous communities think and act in systems, and recognize the interconnectedness of land, water, people, the winged and four-legged ones.

The Shift Lab strove to ethically centre, and authentically engage, Indigenous knowledge and problem-solving systems with other social innovation ways of finding solutions. This “two-eyed-seeing” (a term brought forward by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall) approach helped inform all aspects of the process and prototypes.

Shift Lab 2.0 Theory of Change

1. We wanted to create interactive processes that motivate people to change (covertly and overtly) racist behaviours that contribute to racialized outcomes.

2. We focused on the Sleepy Middle (see description on page 28): those who may exhibit unconscious or indirect racist ideas and behaviours, rather than overt and direct ones. 3. We were committed to our approach of weaving together

Indigenous processes, systems change, and design thinking to uncover promising pathways forward. We called this our Triple Helix approach (see page 30 for more).

That leads to...

in order to...

Trying to increase...

Focussed on...

Employing...

WELL-BEING

REDUCE RACIST BEHAVIOURS

CAPACITY MOTIVATION OPPORTUNITY

How might we reimagine what it means to be a Treaty person?

How might we create an interactive empathy experience that strives to reduce racist behaviour over time?

How might we create encouraging pathways that help potential allies for racial justice overcome white fragility?

How might we design intervention(s) that de-escalate public displays of overt racist behaviour?

SYSTEMS THINKING

DESIGN THINKING INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES

Shaped by political, economic, social and environmental factors

Tackling Racism in an Edmonton Context Through a Social Innovation Lab

If anything can be considered a wicked problem, it is racism. Can racism be “solved” in Canada? Perhaps — but the burden of racism carries with it political, economic, cultural, legal, and social dimensions, all of which require society-wide responses. The number of ways racism can manifest is only limited by how we as human beings choose to treat one another. These tensions revealed themselves early on in the Shift Lab as we moved to explore, understand, and unpack this topic.

We acknowledge a long history of grassroots work that preceded us in Edmonton, as well as a slew of new voices contributing to this ongoing dialog. Combatting racism is hard work, and we are grateful for those who have sacrificed their time, energy, and lives for this cause. As best we can, we are attuned to feedback from these folks and from other communities.

Because of the complexity with racism and anti-racism, we are skeptical of formulas, prescriptions and one-size-fitsall approaches. An approach that works for one particular community or for one complex system may not work in another. For example, anti-Black racism and anti-Indigenous racism in Canada can be seen in the over-representation of Black and Indigenous people in the criminal justice system, as noted by journalist Desmond Cole and others. Redress for both communities might take the form of similar measures (de-policing, restorative/alternative forms of justice etc.). However, if we look at another systemic issue, such as the achievement gaps in primary education for both communities, we would see different reasons for those gaps: the legacy of the Indian residential school system on Indigenous communities on the one hand, and underresourced urban schools serving primarily Black students on the other. We could conclude that different solutions, tailored to each community, would be required to close those gaps.

Why Use Social Innovation Approaches to Address Racism?

As Stewards of the Shift Lab, we saw promise in a social innovation lab approach because it nudges participants to go beyond talking about ideas, policies and systems and into making ideas tangible and testable. Good social innovation labs are rooted in community, keep assumptions in check and engage in deeply participatory approaches to tackle tough challenges. We thought this approach would be promising to explore with a diverse group of Edmontonians living in Treaty 6 Territory. Our Core Team participants were all Edmonton residents but each had different roots here in amiskwaciwâskahikan (the original name for Edmonton, which translates as “Beaver Hills House” in Cree). They brought their various identities to this work and shared personal insights with one another during the lab sessions. While there is no prescriptive response to fight racism, having a diverse collective tackling the issue better ensured the complexity of the challenge was being worked on from many perspectives. From this experience, we surmise that scaling anti-racism work to influence systems and policy in other parts of Canada or beyond will likely require a deep understanding of the local context.