Board Engagement: Five Strategies to Mobilize Leaders for Community Impact
Discover how board engagement can amplify community impact through effective strategies that inspire participation
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How to Design Social Innovation Accelerators That Deliver Real Impact
Learn tips to create social innovation accelerators to weave tangible impact by design from start to finish
Navigating the Risks of Social Innovation Accelerators
At Community Catalyst Collective, a community foundation focused on economic development, the Program Director faces a significant challenge.
Despite substantial investments in their social innovation accelerator, there is increasing concern that this initiative — which encourages participants to leverage emerging technologies such as virtual reality, blockchain, and artificial intelligence — may end without producing meaningful results that align with social impact objectives.
This concern is not unfounded.
While many in the social sector fear falling behind, they frequently encounter difficulties in harnessing new technologies due to the overwhelming number of options and a lack of sufficient technical expertise.
Even within corporate environments where such expertise is abundant, a staggering 85% of digital transformation projects do not succeed, according to research by Gartner.
Additionally, the Program Director understands that resource-intensive failures can detract from — rather than enhance — the capabilities of their participants.
By exhausting limited resources such as time, attention, and energy without producing meaningful results, the accelerator risks undermining morale and hindering the progress of its grantees even further.
Why Traditional Approaches to Social Innovation Accelerators Fall Short
Common methodologies for operating social innovation accelerators often fail to address the concerns raised above.
Some concentrate exclusively on ideas or aspirations without considering practical implementation. Others emphasize technological solutions while neglecting to grasp the social context fully.
Many innovation programs encounter difficulties in measuring and demonstrating tangible impact, leaving participants uncertain about the real-world value of their innovations.
Consequently, the director is eager to investigate strategies that will help maximize impact throughout the entire process rather than merely hoping for favorable outcomes at the conclusion.
By remaining attuned to their stakeholders’ primary priorities and needs, social innovation accelerators can establish themselves as credible thought leaders and inform future capacity-building initiatives.
The article below provides five strategies to do so.
The approaches recommended not only reduce the risk of limited applicability but also enhance the potential for creating meaningful, scalable impact in the social sector, empowering social innovators to engage critically with new technologies and innovations for social justice.
At Joyful Ventures, our innovation advisors specialize in helping social impact leaders like you create people-first innovation that maximize your and your organization’s impact.
Strategy 1: Connect Problem and Technical Experts in Your Social Innovation Accelerator
One significant risk for social innovation accelerators is that those on the frontlines of serving underserved communities may lack the capabilities or bandwidth needed to build technical solutions.
In today's fast-paced technological landscape, certain groups are at risk of being left behind in a growing digital divide. Despite their incredibly rich knowledge of the problem context, these frontline actors are often excluded from actively participating in the development and design of new innovations, leaving them without a voice in shaping the future of technology.
To reverse this trend, social impact accelerators can foster partnerships between problem experts and technology specialists, bridging this divide safely and effectively.
This approach is beneficial for several reasons.
First, developing both new technical capabilities and impactful solutions simultaneously in a short period of time, as you would in an accelerator program, can be difficult.
With an increased likelihood of success and by working with skilled partners on a real project, participants can gain hands-on experience and the momentum needed to invest in long-term technology capabilities after the program concludes.
Second, involving individuals and organizations that are directly addressing community issues from the beginning of the innovation process is crucial for fostering responsible innovation.
While technology experts possess the necessary skills for formal tool development, they often lack full understanding of the complexities of social problems, potentially causing more harm than good. Partnerships thus ensure full inclusion of necessary problem and audience expertise — without overwhelming participating frontline organizations.
Finally, working with a variety of technical experts can enable brainstorming a wider range of solutions, while building off what’s already working.
These can include:
- adopting or modifying existing off-the-shelf tools
- optimizing workflows through the use or creation of new services
- creating content or communities, such as guides, calculators, or membership groups
By doing so, participants can create impact in shorter timeframes — even if formal technical tool development, which can be time-consuming, does not occur.
To implement this strategy:
- Identify and reach out to potential tech partners with a track record in social impact projects and working with nonprofits or non-technical partners. For example, prioritize nonprofit tech partners or individual mission-aligned engineers.
- Prioritize social impact partners with a track record or prior experience with creating technology innovation and/or working with technical partners
- Organize networking events (such as a hackathon) to facilitate connections between problem experts and tech specialists, and enable them to work together
Strategy 2: Focus on One or Two High-Potential Domains in Your Social Innovation Accelerator
Another risk stems from a diluted focus, making it difficult for an impact accelerator’s leadership team and its participants to effectively support each other due to inapplicable experiences and contexts.
For maximum impact, social innovation accelerators might consider focusing on specific domains they’ve validated to have truly unmet needs or underserved audiences — and are connected to their own and their participants’ unique expertise and passion.
For instance, instead of just focusing on “community development” as a whole, consider focusing attention on specific and critically-important underserved domains within community development. These might include permanently affordable housing models, anti-polarization/nonviolent communication, or cross-sector/demographic movement building.
This focused approach has further benefits:
- allows for consistent comparison among potential applicants who are true experts on the issues at hand
- develop more relevant and useful impact metrics tailored to the specific needs of those areas
- enable teams to address complementary aspects of the problem and increase the likelihood of impact through more relatable knowledge sharing and problem expertise building
To implement this focused approach:
- Conduct a thorough assessment of your accelerator’s positioning, examining your leadership team’s unequal advantages (e.g., easily-accessible network to key buyers and users, expertise, and assets) and the biggest unmet needs in specific domains given existing work
- Prioritize domains where your social innovation accelerator can make the most significant impact based on strategic criteria
- Recruit teams that can address complementary aspects of the chosen problem areas and have deep expertise and plentiful connections to buyers and users in that domain
For more on strategic positioning for impact consider, see the series below
This is a series about building and testing your messaging, positioning, and value proposition
#1 - Messaging & Positioning Template for Social Impact Leaders
#2 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Core Unmet Needs
#3 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Ideal Client Profile
#4 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Differentiator
#5 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Marketplace Category
#6 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Overcoming Objections I (Proof & Use Case)
#7 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Overcoming Objections II (Offers)
#8 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Testing
#9 - Messaging & Positioning Template: Learning from Data
Strategy 3: Use Hackathons to Choose High-Potential Participants for Your Social Innovation Accelerator
Another risk is that participants may lack the capability or experience to follow through on innovative ideas with limited resources.
Applications and interviews can often provide noisy signals regarding a team’s actual ability to execute.
Therefore, it is essential to focus on testing for your ultimate outcome: participants’ capacity to follow through and create meaningful impact. This aligns with the "agile" approach, which emphasizes iterative testing and learning before significant investment concludes.
Hackathons — and events like them — serve as effective methods to generate actionable solutions while fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders.
Here are a few benefits:
- Events like hackathons bring together problem solvers and solution experts to build initial partnerships and identify those most capable of executing innovative ideas.
- The hackathon can function as a bite-sized version of the larger program, allowing you to both gather feedback and provide resources to a broader group of participants.
- You can select the “winners” of the hackathon more confidently for further investment in your accelerator program because they have demonstrated their ability to follow through with limited resources.
To make the most of hackathons in your social innovation accelerator:
- Define clear, socially relevant challenges for participants to tackle, ideally in a couple of high potential domains, paired with specific impact metrics
- Invite a diverse group of participants, including both tech experts and those with deep knowledge of social issues
- Provide resources and mentorship before and during the event to support idea and relationship development
For more on de-risking recruiting and hiring “Effective Recruitment Plans for Top Talent Start with Great Job Descriptions”
Strategy 4: Have Participants Find Committed Buyers or Users as a Target Outcome for Your Social Innovation Accelerator
Keeping buyers or users in mind addresses another critical risk — starting with the solution rather than the problem.
Instead, by having a clear audience in mind from the beginning, this "people-and-problem first" approach aligns well with the goal of responsible technology use. The endpoint of this process could include validated "prototypes" that respond to these highest-need areas resulting in formal commitments by buyers or users.
By better serving key stakeholders and their core unmet needs and constraints, you can safely and effectively improve their capacity through the use of new technology.
Focusing on serving others in your top couple of chosen domains mitigates another risk: that innovations created benefit only one organization with limited generalizability. By prioritizing service to others as a key outcome, accelerators can reduce the risk of limited applicability of solutions and a diminished scale of impact.
Another major bottleneck many participants face is lacking a direct network to these buyers and users.
Targeting a couple of domains where the accelerator’s leadership team and participants possess unique advantages significantly increases the chances of overcoming this divide. Essential introductions or use of relevant personal contacts becomes exponentially easier.
Finally, buyers or users often require comprehensive solutions to truly adopt a new offering
This need also is more likely to be met when you focus on specific domains. By concentrating efforts in these areas, participants can partner together to address multiple aspects of a problem, resulting in a more comprehensive solution. Even without formal partnerships, they can share resources and contacts with each other more effectively.
Collaborations like these are particularly beneficial for resource-strapped organizations, as addressing complex challenges alone can be infeasible.
To implement this strategy:
- Encourage participants to engage potential users or buyers early in the innovation process, starting bottom-up with their key core unmet needs and challenges to inform solution development.
- Develop a clear value proposition for each project and engage in iterative testing and co-creation
- Sign formal agreements or memorandums of understanding with committed users or buyers to validate that the solution is solving a real problem
To test value propositions and new solutions quickly, check out Validating your innovation in 48 hours
Strategy 5: Build a Shared Knowledge and Tool Base Stewarded By Your Social Innovation Accelerator
Finally, fostering a culture where participants — who have experienced significant investment during their time in the accelerator — contribute back helps ensure that every dollar invested now or in the future goes further, resulting in a common pool of knowledge and tools rather than being absorbed into privately-owned assets.
Encouraging outputs to contribute to a “knowledge commons” is a powerful way for social innovation accelerators to maximize impact while ensuring that lessons learned and tools created remain accessible for future initiatives.
To build this common knowledge and tool base:
- Establish a platform or repository for sharing insights, solutions to challenges, technical knowhow, tooling/software created, connections, and similar resources, considering legal mechanisms like open source, Creative Commons licenses, or public benefit trusts
- Incentivize participants to document their processes and learnings by organizing knowledge-sharing sessions or gatherings to disseminate insights and encourage peer-to-peer support
- Publicly share valuable information from the database while ensuring privacy protection. This approach creates a safe environment for participants to express their thoughts, while also attracting new participants and sponsors
This approach not only enhances the overall impact of your program but also extends critical conversations about safe and impactful use of emerging technology in the social sector.
Conclusion: Maximizing Impact through Social Innovation Accelerators
By implementing these strategies, social innovation accelerators can overcome common challenges associated with creating tangible impact despite significant investments.
The key lies in fostering collaboration between problem experts and tech specialists, leveraging events like hackathons, focusing on specific high-impact domains, securing committed users, and building a shared knowledge and tool base.
We encourage you to share your experiences with social innovation accelerators in the comments below.
What strategies have you found most effective in driving tangible impact?
Three Opportunities with Joyful Ventures
• Want a Template? Request one here
• Looking for guidance? Get your free innovation audit
• Want updates? Subscribe below 👇
• Looking for guidance? Get your free innovation audit
• Want updates? Subscribe below 👇
Related Posts
48 hour Business Validation for Innovators
Discover a 3-step checklist to validate your business innovation strategy in just 48 hours. Learn rapid validation techniques for startup success.
Dump Your Laundry List: Google Sheets Task Management Template
Toss your laundry list with this Google Sheets task management template for social impact leaders.
Made with Bullet