Getting Better Social Change Results

The beginning of a new year brings with it a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how our social change efforts can be improved. Sustainable businesses need to innovate and advertise and promote. Nonprofits need to raise money and develop new programs or projects. Social marketing campaigns are always starting up. Activists and nonprofit managers are interested in public education and advocacy efforts, that are maximally effective.
Tools for generating ideas and solving problems can help, and there are certainly plenty of tools! That’s what this blog is about - informing the socially conscious about the tools and their applications to social betterment.
The beginning of a new year offers me the opportunity (excuse?) to change the focus of my posts. I’d been focusing on he tools and techniques. Now, I’m going to focus on goals common to social activists. This list matches those goals and common variations on them:
1. Advocacy - development of new strategies and tactics
2. Fundraising - including in-kind contributions and grants
3. Program Design - including policies and projects to implement or “sell” to an audience
4. Social Marketing - cause marketing, public education campaigns
5. Sustainable Business - process redesign, products, services
A little bit of systematic, formal problem analysis and idea generation might lead to better results - more money raised, more votes, fewer people doing (insert your favorite bad behavior). In the next few posts, I’ll focus on advocacy efforts - how to create and sell new ideas about social policy, consumerism, diet, or any other issue area.