Realise and disseminate

What?

This stage of the social innovation process involves moving from ideas and words to action and sustainability. Once a social innovation has been developed and tested, the next step is to implement the solution and sustain it on a permanent basis. A key question then is: How can the solution be made easily accessible, user-friendly, and value-creating? Many social innovations are time-limited projects. It is important to find a long-term operational model and a suitable organizational structure for the developed solution, for example, by forming a cross-sectoral alliance, a new organization, or an internal unit. Second, a sustainable financing model must be established to ensure the initiative can be sustained over the long term. It is also necessary to ensure that the solution is used and disseminated to contexts where it makes a difference. The solution may and should be disseminated or scaled to more locations, target groups, and areas of operation. In doing so, it is important to adapt the solution to local needs while maintaining its core purpose and quality.

Why?

It is not enough to understand a problem, come up with new ideas, and develop solutions to create value. It is essential to ensure that these innovative solutions are implemented, used, and disseminated where they can make a difference. Since it can take time for social innovations to take root and have an impact, it is important to move from time-limited projects to a long-term operational model. 

It is difficult to find and secure long-term funding. Overall, it is often easier to find funding for the initiation of social innovations than for their establishment and integration. Rarely do all parts of the innovation process fit within the scope of various types of funding calls, which tend to prioritize short-term and individual-focused initiatives rather than long-term and structural changes. There are a number of external factors that influence the funding of social innovations. For example, there are strong norms that funding for innovations should primarily contribute to commercialization and economic growth, which suits certain innovations but not others. The majority of financial resources within innovation support are still allocated based on old prioritization patterns. The focus on funding technical and commercial innovations in fast-growing corporations does not reflect the diversity of solutions and driving forces inherent in social innovation. This means that only a small portion of all innovation funding in Sweden goes to social innovation.

Another challenge is to create the conditions necessary for innovations to be institutionalized and integrated among various stakeholders. The capacity to adopt change and the willingness to do so are often limited among the actors who have the mandate and capacity to alter the status quo. There is limited scope for action when it comes to influencing established structures and norms within organizations and society. To bring about long-term societal change at the societal and systemic levels, it is therefore also necessary to develop a dedicated organization for the solution or to integrate the solution into a host organization that can manage the work—administering, developing, and disseminating the solution on a permanent basis.

As mentioned earlier, many social innovations end up being merely temporary projects. If we do not make use of the knowledge that already exists and the solutions that work, we will have to reinvent the wheel time and again, which is inefficient. This can also lead to a lack of trust in social innovation among the target groups and stakeholders involved in the work, as well as in society at large. 

How?

One step toward securing long-term funding can be so-called "string-of-pearls" projects, in which the initiative is gradually expanded and deepened through a series of consecutive projects. Social innovations are often funded through a combination of internal and external resources, known as blended financing. Examples of internal resources for the long-term operation of social innovations include equity, labor, and volunteer work. Examples of external resources include business operations, public grants, cross-sectoral partnerships, social investments, and donations. 

A social innovation can either be carried forward within the framework of the organization that originally developed it or taken over by another existing organization. It can also be carried forward within the framework of a separate organization—such as an association, a company, or a network formed specifically to run the new initiative. There are also examples of hybrid organizations, where operational structures and business models from different sectors of society are integrated, such as in social enterprises. It is important to develop the organizational structure in collaboration with the people and societal actors involved, and to ensure support and space for such co-creation in the form of time, resources, and expertise. 

To create synergies between stakeholders and various solutions, and to generate broader benefits for society, it is important that best practices and lessons learned about innovative solutions are disseminated and shared across organizations, disciplines, industries, municipalities, regions, and countries.

A social innovation can be expanded to more locations, areas of operation, and target groups. Scaling social innovation can be achieved in various ways: 

• Scaling upinvolves reaching and impacting a larger number of people by expanding to more locations and contexts. The organization that developed the solution may begin to use it in more areas of its operations or establish new operations in more locations, or other actors may adopt or establish the solution in new contexts. This can happen by making the solution freely available or through franchising, where the transfer is governed by an agreement.
• Scaling upis about influencing laws and policies by changing society’s institutional frameworks and political governance. 
• "Deep-level change" is about influencing people's "hearts and minds" by transforming cultural values and social relationships.

A social innovation that is scaled up often needs to be adapted when it is disseminated to new contexts through local adaptations and reinterpretations. A successful strategy for disseminating social innovations may therefore involve partially standardizing the solution through common guidelines, while allowing room for local variations. At the same time, even small-scale solutions can be sufficiently meaningful for the people and local communities they affect, without needing to be scaled up.

Example

Here we have compiled examples of social innovations that have successfully transitioned from projects to more long-term initiatives. This includes solutions that have established a sustainable funding model and created an organization to manage and develop the solution over the long term, as well as examples that have been replicated in other contexts. 

Primary subject area Work

The Welfare Guide

Over time, Sweden’s extensive welfare system has become difficult to understand and navigate. The Welfare Guide addresses this need through a website that helps individuals find the right resources. What makes it socially innovative is that it brings together information about services, support, and activities from various public agencies and other organizations in one place, making it easier for people to get the help they need.

Read more about the Welfare Guide