Mobilise
What?
This stage of the social innovation process involves the people and societal actors who influence and are influenced by the societal challenge. It involves mobilizing, coordinating, and connecting the relevant target groups and societal actors. Here, it is important to also involve individuals and organizations that have the mandate to bring about long-term change. It is also essential to secure the resources—such as knowledge, labor, funding, and more—needed to drive the process forward.
Mobilization is a collective aspect of social innovation. It can take the form of innovative collaborations that transcend organizational and sectoral boundaries, new processes for co-creation between target groups, stakeholders, and experts, or new ways of organizing and financing the process.
Why?
Complex societal challenges often extend beyond various types of boundaries. The causes of these complex problems typically involve multiple aspects of society, such as different disciplines and fields of knowledge, sectors, industries, organizations, professions, and groups. Complex societal challenges typically challenge norms, traditional structures, and established frameworks that are tailored to technological and scientific innovation and fit into the logic of economic growth.
To effectively harness multiple perspectives on the societal challenge and its potential solutions, it is crucial to mobilize both the people directly affected by the challenge and the societal actors and organizations with the mandate to influence it. Broad mobilization enables the creation of synergies between resources and perspectives from diverse actors and sectors.
To find solutions, societal actors must therefore go beyond current societal structures and established systems, join forces, and collaborate across boundaries and silos. New collaborations and processes need to be formed. Social innovations also require new types of organization and financing. Collaboration across societal sectors and synergies between different types of resources are often required.
How?
This element consists of three key components:
- Inclusion
It is important that mobilization takes place in an inclusive manner. This involves consciously including underrepresented actors and perspectives, as well as relevant sectors of society—including civil society, the public sector, academia, and those directly affected by the challenge. It also involves ensuring a broad and diverse range of participants in terms of age, gender, ethnicity or background, disability, and more. Furthermore, it is essential to ensure that all stakeholders have the opportunity to participate and exert influence through democratic processes, physical and psychological accessibility, and financial compensation when necessary. - Funding
Funding the development and implementation of social innovations often requires a combination of different funding models and sources. It is common to combine internal resources—such as equity capital, staff, and volunteer work—with external resources, such as project grants, contract funding, and social investments. - Organization
To achieve mobilization, it is necessary to ensure that there is time, resources, expertise, support, and room for collaboration. Social innovation requires long-term organization.
Guiding questions
- What resources—in terms of funding, manpower, skills, and so on—are needed to address this societal challenge?
- Which stakeholders from civil society, the business community, the public sector, and academia need to be engaged?
How can target groups and other affected individuals be involved in an inclusive manner? - How can we ensure diversity in participation—in terms of gender, age, country of origin, disability, and so on?
Understand societal challenge
Envisioning societal change
Mobilise
Develop and test
Realise and disseminate
Create value
The social innovation process
The social innovation process
Methods and tools
Here you’ll find a selection of methods and tools that illustrate the “Mobilise” element. Some of them are also excellent tools to use in your innovation process. They’ve been selected because they work in various contexts and in different parts of the world. Many of them promote innovative thinking, shifts in perspective, inclusion, and co-creation.
Please let us know if you have any other methods you think might be a good fit!
Example
Here we have compiled examples of social innovations that contribute to mobilization. This means that people and societal actors affected by a societal challenge are engaged and involved, as are the resources needed to address the challenge.
Read, listen, and watch
The tips below have been selected to deepen your understanding of the “Mobilize” element. They are intended to provide practical guidance for designing and implementing innovative initiatives. Hopefully, these tips can also serve as a lens through which to reflect on “how we’ve always done things,” paving the way for further social innovations.
Most of the tips are freely available via the links provided.
