The authors of Social Innovation for Real-World Transformation describe a future where collaborative work and reciprocity can create a different kind of society, pointing readers to hands-on skills and summarizing big-picture ideas into digestible charts and lists.
Social Innovation for Real-World Transformation: Roadmaps for Changing the World, by Julie Chateauvert, Philippe Dufort, Jonathan Durand Folco, Christopher Gunter, Krys Maki, Anahi Morales Hudon, Philippe Néméh-Nombré, Julie Paquette, Jamel Stambouli, Simon Tremblay-Pepin, and Amanda Wilson. Policy Press, 2025; 212 pp; ISBN 978-1447374732.
I recently met with a student partway through her social-work practicum. During our conversation, she shared a discomfort with slower periods in the agency where she’s placed. Not being busy, not actively “helping” don’t jibe with the ways she’s been conditioned to think about productivity. She’s in good company; it’s hard for many of us to see downtime as legitimate space for rest and re-grounding that strengthens our work.
And yet, when we’re talking about generational, systems-changing efforts, there needs to be enough spaciousness to innovate. As readers of The Philanthropist Journal know too well, it’s difficult to think creatively about complex problems if we’re exhausted or constantly chasing the next band-aid solution.
Changing systems – including through participatory approaches and solidarity – is discussed at length by the 11 authors of Social Innovation for Real-World Transformation: Roadmaps for Changing the World. Social innovation is positioned as “collective self-organization by social actors and marginalized groups seeking to combat social injustices . . . to transform the conditions of existence . . . and dismantle structures of domination.”
Versions of this aim appear throughout the book, which does not provide (as I’d somewhat hoped) an easy reply to use during all the occasions when friends and family ask me, “But what is social innovation anyway?” Instead, the book invites readers into a longer conversation, commenting that “if social innovation is indeed a field, then it is also a battlefield over its own meaning, foundations, struggles and aspirations.”
And so, off to the battlefield we go! These changemakers invite us into their work at the Élisabeth-Bruyère School of Social Innovation at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, and their writing is full of provocation. (After all, how could we arrive on a battlefield without provocation?)
Reading some sections, I felt déjà vu as I recalled my time volunteering with a group that had once set out to develop a resource on how to evaluate social innovation; we often got hung up on what counted as social innovation – and whether social justice was an inherent requirement.
The main objective of social innovators should be to transform power dynamics, increasing the power of affected individuals and groups.
In these authors’ words, “social justice asks us to consider the ends or ultimate purpose of social innovation.” They go on to say that the main objective of social innovators should be to transform power dynamics, increasing the power of affected individuals and groups.
Certainly, readers of this book are asked to reconsider common power dynamics, from small group interactions to typical business structures to the worldview that says humans are meant to dominate non-human relations. The authors offer frequent reminders that we can (and should) bring more collaboration, participation, and reciprocity into our lives and workplaces.
The authors also push us to question how we define success. They note that social innovation has, at times, been a label taken up by organizations that end up reproducing the very dysfunction they claim to resolve. They also caution that focusing so much on impact measurementcan mean we degrade our actual social impact.
On this issue, the book suggests that organizations and people must be able to define evaluation tools that work for them, and the authors reference the Montreal Declaration on Evaluation and Social Impact Measurement as a valuable resource. This approach of linking theory with resources occurs throughout the book.
I’ve sometimes joked that I know I’m talking to an academic when the person uses the word “discursive” – and that kind of language does make regular appearances in the book. On the other hand, the authors also call readers to hands-on skills and frequently summarize big-picture ideas into digestible charts and lists. They say that we must identify tools and methods if we are to effect viable, scalable, long-term change.
The authors say that we must identify tools and methods if we are to effect viable, scalable, long-term change.
The practical points and summaries are appreciated because the authors cover so much ground. The book tours readers through an array of topics like the difficulties of public debate (made worse by social media and polarization), opportunities found in participatory government (including citizen juries and participatory budgets), civil rights and community organizing, a rethinking of property rights, workplace effectiveness (and lack thereof), the importance of reflexivity, and so on.
Perhaps because of this wide view, it’s not always clear who the book is for. And while there are plenty of real-world examples to explain various concepts, I often questioned whether the examples depicted social innovation. This broad coverage plays into the battleground mentioned earlier: is social innovation its own thing? These authors have me thinking it’s perhaps more a useful way to package up a collection of approaches and theories from other disciplines. They note that social movements can incubate innovation, that community mobilization can help spread ideas that lead to large-scale change.
When viewed this way, this book is like a mix tape of the greatest hits to enable social change. In that respect, if it was an assigned textbook during my student days, I’d have welcomed the breadth of information. Reading it today, I became reacquainted with many of the thinkers referenced, and felt gratitude for what they’ve brought to my learning so far (e.g., Paulo Freire, bell hooks, Margaret Mead, Saul Alinsky, and so on). At the same time, the collection also introduced me to names and ideas I haven’t previously studied.
With that in mind (and knowing that no one makes mix tapes anymore), it might be more appropriate to compare the book to a playlist fed by an algorithm. I can imagine, for example, a prompt that says, “If you enjoyed the ladder of citizen participation from Sherry Arnstein, consider the sociologist Marie-Hélène Bacqué as she asks you to discern the shadow side of shared decision-making and how it might lead to privatization.”
Regardless of the metaphor, however, I appreciate the authors’ dedication to describing a future where collaborative work and reciprocity can create a different kind of society. Particularly as they support their vision with historical examples, they demonstrate how the reimagined futures have already existed in various parts of the world and across time. I feel their point with much hope: Look, humans have come together and made positive change – for such a long time and in so many places. We can do it too.
