Changing society because we must
Together
Social innovation strengthens the capacity of
people to act together for common purpose.
Since the global financial crisis of 2007/08 governments
around the world have been very keen to grow the
resilience of their societies using mutuality and collaboration.
But how to consistently trigger the changes in behaviour to benefit society?
Real world social enterprises are one effective answer to this question because they may operate without having to make a commercial profit. The collaboration of innovative social enterprises feeds the growth of larger and stronger social and, often also commercial networks.
To further the development of policy for Social Innovation across Europe, the government of Portugal working with the European Union, The EU Commission and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon invited more than 1000 people and organisations active in social innovation to a ( huge ) multi-day event.
We were deeply privileged to be asked to attend the conference to draw what took place and you can see a little of what that involved in the brief slideshow below. You can also read a short report of the conference at the Foundation's website.
In the UK one of the most famous examples of public work towards sustainable social change – or Innovation – has been the ‘Nudge’ Unit of the the UK government’s Cabinet Office. Today, this is a social purpose company called Behavioural Insights – which is still part owned by the UK Government and Nesta – the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.
Drawnalism were fortunate to work directly with them in Lisbon and we look forward to doing so again in the future.