Earlier this summer, members of our network weaver community met online to chat about an important topic: how is social innovation being used with, by, and for marginalized communities in Alberta?

As a group, we were curious about a few things:

Where do we see promising examples in which people from marginalized communities (and, more broadly, people who are most affected by the problems being addressed) are meaningfully engaging in social innovation processes? What practices are encouraging in this respect?
What practices should we be cautious of? Are there cases in which social innovation language is being used to perpetuate harmful practices, keep marginalized groups at the margins, or reinforce unhelpful stereotypes?

With those questions in mind, we let the conversation wander where it needed to. Here are a few themes that emerged:

Let go of control and expectations

Several people shared examples in which they (or their organizations) learned the importance of letting go of their expectations and relinquishing control.

“We learned very quickly that if we set expectations ourselves (without involving those we were working with and for in setting those expectations), we set ourselves up for failure.” (Matthew)
“When working with leaders in rural communities, we try to meet them where they’re at. We need to be ok with not having expectations of what will emerge. We need to be comfortable with it being unsettled.” (Jessica)

Understand and try to remove barriers

Each person on our call had examples they had witnessed in which barriers--often unintentional ones--stood in the way of people’s meaningful participation in community change efforts. When and how we invite people to engage in a changemaking process makes all the difference.

Heather commented: “If social innovation tools are used thoughtfully, they can help people at the centre push past edges and engage beyond their comfort zone. But often our engagement methods are made for people who fit comfortable 9-5 roles. We need to start asking: Who’s in our networks? Who’s outside our networks or in opposition to us and why?”

Some simple (but important) considerations were raised in our conversation:

Time, compensation, and accessibility. Common practices and assumptions that may hinder people’s meaningful engagement include:

expecting people to participate in workshops during 9 - 5 business hours;
expecting people to participate in lengthy processes without compensation for their time; and
neglecting to consider childcare needs, accessibility concerns, or transportation options.

Language. We spoke about the importance of finding shared language and terminology, and working to deeply understand how people think and talk about an issue before jumping in with jargon.

“Language can be both helpful and unhelpful. One thing we’ve tested is ‘listening for change’: finding out what gets people excited and passionate, which is an indicator that innovation is probably happening. Then we ‘back in’ to models and use the language of social innovation to describe what they’re doing and/or what might add value.” (Jessica)

Celebrate and learn from those leading the way

It’s easy to talk about common mistakes or blunders, but equally important to recognize and learn from those doing this type of work well. We spent some time reflecting on positive examples we’ve witnessed. They included:

Vibrant Communities Calgary’s Poverty Talks Group: people with lived experience who function as an advisory board for Vibrant Communities Calgary. Any new policies and ideas are workshopped through them. They share their stories at events and engagement sessions, and they’re compensated for their time.
The City of Edmonton’s RECOVER project learned many lessons from its innovative approaches to engaging marginalized community members. See this reflection on RECOVER, written by Alex Ryan.
The Edmonton Shift Lab (Matthew was a participant; he reflected on his own experience as an Indigenous queer participant engaging in difficult conversations about racism and poverty). Participants come from all walks of life, are fairly compensated, and are given an opportunity to donate back the honorarium if they don’t need it (with no shame or disrespect for those who need and take the money). The engagement process was also carefully designed so that people felt safe and listened to, both during and after the sessions. See the Shift Lab summary report from year 1.
The Women’s Centre in Calgary: any policies and recommendations drafted by their team have to first pass through a group of 15 women with diverse backgrounds and experiences who respond with endorsement or suggestions. This helps to make sure that whatever they’re putting forward fits with women’s lived experiences.
Grassroots grants: The Calgary Foundation offers small project-based grants for community groups, and they’ve done some creative maneuvering to ensure that you don’t have to be legally registered as an organization to be eligible for funds. Andrea shared a beautiful example in which a group of women from Forest Lawn in Calgary saw a need (a lack of showers available for vulnerable members of their community), and went to a pitch night proposing a solution: allowing people to access the showers in the local arena when it wasn’t in use in the evenings. They got the funding to test this idea, and the city now opens the arena showers to the public on a weekly basis.
Homeward Trust: In 2015, Matthew says his organization realized they couldn’t use their federal funding for the types of compensation they felt was needed to support the meaningful engagement of vulnerable groups. Rather than saying that better forms of compensation weren’t possible, they found ways to pay living wages and use better alternatives (e.g. visa gift card to allow participant choice, rather than a Tim Horton’s card), and then they educated their funders about why this mattered. That feedback loop has been critical to hold funders accountable and to show them when and where more flexible funds are needed in order to make good work happen.
Heather recalled an example from her work in the Middle East in which the group she was working with started by thinking about how to meaningfully include those with the greatest risk from participating, and then built out from there. This meant some people had to travel 12 hours through difficult regions, and it led to some challenging conversations about privilege and inclusion.

This, of course, led us to the question of who’s being included in and paid to do social innovation work here in Alberta, and how we can intentionally expand the circles we work within. We reflected on the importance of paying attention to the stories we’re telling, who’s telling them, and who we’re inviting into conversations. A few people noted how meaningful it can be to see role models from diverse backgrounds and perspectives engaging with social innovation.

Some of the thoughtful reflections shared:

“My first introduction to social innovation was through Jodi Stonehouse at Shift Lab. I loved her perspectives as to how social innovation was something meaningful and already-present in Cree ways of thinking and Indigenous communities. From her experience I was able to see how social innovation has the potential to support new initiatives, strategies, and approaches and meet a range of needs. Jodi has some great content on Shift Lab’s website. And she was recently on ABSI Connect’s podcast!” (Matthew)
“When I find myself in these conversations about diversity and inclusion, I always try to see what small action I can take to do something about it. So what might we do now?” (Heather)
“Social innovation is something that many Indigenous communities are totally already doing. But people might not consider themselves part of this space. So it’s partly language. And partly who we’re inviting. I’ll invite some amazing young Indigenous and queer folks to our next ABSI event!” (Matthew)

“There is something to be said about meeting in spaces where people are already gathering… for example, Together Alberta hosted their engagement sessions on the UN SDGs at the library. This informal space brought in people from the library’s programs and services, as well as people from marginalized communities.” (Daniela)

Resources shared in our conversation:

Vu Le’s blog, NonprofitAF, shares examples of some of the unspoken patterns and thought processes that can inhibit meaningful engagement.
Nurture Development provides resources on inclusive conversations, asset-based community development, and more (see the stories and examples in Cormac Russell’s blog as well).
This recent article from CKX about bridging social innovation and social justice language and approaches: https://www.ckx.org/fieldnotes/2018/5/6/the-promise-of-bridging
Marilyn Struthers’ article in the Philanthropist about the disconnects and opportunities involved in the tension between social justice and social innovation.

What questions, examples, resources, or reflections come to mind for you as you read this? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Send us a note!

This blog post was written by ABSI Connect’s facilitator Naomi Mahaffy, with input from members of our network weaver community. Contact Naomi to share your story and reflections or to learn more about ABSI Connect.