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In this article published by the Harvard Business Review in 2006 the authors Christensen, Baumann, Ruggles and Sadtler explore the effectiveness of the traditional versus innovative approaches to drive real social change. Their sharp, logic and concise proposition dubbed as catalytic innovation is based in the creation of services to address the people ignored by traditional social sector organisations.
Implementing strategies to address and improve the most basic social needs will improve our chances to step up and enable us to approach the more specific needs without compromising the wellbeing of the community. The article points out the difficulty of a business minded approach to the innovation in the social sector. Thus catalytic minds must differentiate themselves from the rest of the innovation approaches. Catalytic innovators share five qualities:
1. They create systemic social change through scaling and replication.
2. They meet a need that is either overserved (because the existing solution is more complex than many people require) or not served at all.
3. They offer products and services that are simpler and less costly than existing alternatives and may be perceived as having a lower level of performance, but users consider them to be good enough.
4. They generate resources, such as donations, grants, volunteer manpower, or intellectual capital, in ways that are initially unattractive to incumbent competitors.
5. They are often ignored, disparaged, or even encouraged by existing players for whom the business model is unprofitable or otherwise unattractive and who therefore avoid or retreat from the market segment
There are many successful examples of its application in sectors like health care, education, economic development. Identifying the opportunity for catalytic innovation is a crucial aspect for successful results, the article defines a set of guidelines to promote the investment in social innovations worth to endorse: To look for signs of disruption on the processes; focus on innovative solutions that meet a significant underserved need; analyse the feasibility of the project and asses the business model.
The full article is available for purchase
here.
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