Core Practices:

• Integrate social stakeholders into mainstream markets.
• Integrate market players into social sector.
• Increase interaction and dependence among all stakeholder groups.
• Influence market player behaviors.

Synergies:

• Capture stakeholders' spending power.
• Engage donors in a longer-term investment approach.
• Use stakeholders to diversify human resources.

Tensions:

• Be mindful that increased integration might forfeit traditional fundraising channels.
• Engaging in market mechanisms means less time for traditional fundraising.

Synergies:

• Leverage stakeholders’ knowledge and skills by promoting the concept of “user-led innovation”.

Tensions:

• Increasing stakeholder engagement required accepting slower stakeholder-driven trial and error processes.

Synergies:

• Engage stakeholders in devising a coherent shared value system.
• Use stakeholder choice as an adaptability mechanism.
• Use a distributed approach that support grassroots innovation.

Tensions:

• Be mindful not to create a culture in which traditional social work is seen as a dead-end, undermining social staff morale.

Synergies:

• Use stakeholders as resources.
• Seek resources that facilitate or enhance stakeholder engagement.
• Become part of the mainstream market.

Tensions:

• Stay away from resources that hinder stakeholder engagement.
• One-size-fits-all resource requirements hinder access to poorer clients.

Core Practices:

• Retain market wealth-creation at the source.
• Turn social challenges into wealth-creation opportunities.
• Make resources more scalable and renewable.

Synergies:

• Mobilize resources that directly support knowledge development.
• Use valuation techniques to account for the hidden costs of resources.

Tensions:

• Those not wanting to support development costs are not suited for innovation.

Synergies:

• Take into consideration the inherently restricted nature of particular resources.
• Increase your focus on client needs instead of funder needs.

Tensions:

• Be aware that increased requirements for financial returns might have a counter-effect on building a more flexible culture.

Synergies:

• Use market research to further understand root causes of social problem.
• Develop technology appropriate to social context.
• Develop processes that support the use of sustainable resources.

Tensions:

• One-size-fits-all technology can limit access to harder-to-reach clients.
• Risk of falling for the innovation smokescreen (“new is better”).

Synergies:

• Use market research to improve knowledge of resource availability.
• Develop appropriate technology to manage resources renewably.
• Research the potential of less coveted/more available resources.

Tensions:

• Be wary of over promising and under delivering.
• Research requires upfront investments and associated financial risks.

Core Practices:

• Development of appropriate technology.
• Conduct a down-market needs analysis.
• Develop more efficient supply chain models.

Synergies:

• Conduct ongoing market research to inform responses to emerging trends and opportunities.
• Use business performance monitoring and information management practices to improve risk analysis and implementation strategies.

Tensions:

• Be aware that temporary setbacks and risks inherent to the “trial and error” process central to research and innovation will trigger pressure to come back to a low-risk, more predicable charity mindset.

Synergies:

• Change perceptions about who the stakeholders are.
• Engage mainstream market channels to blur the lines between stakeholder groups.
• Use social marketing techniques to counter damaging marketing messages.

Tensions:

• Excessive use of business jargon might alienate your core stakeholders

Synergies:

• Promote a culture of self-worth among social clients.
• Be honest about successes and failures when promoting risk-taking.

Tensions:

• New business culture might cause the loss of existing human resources.

Synergies:

• Promote work ethic among social clients and internal stakeholders.
• Promote a mindset in support of knowledge sharing.

Tensions:

• Be mindful of the fact that promoting a more competitive business attitude might impede efforts to promote knowledge sharing.

Core Practices:

• Encourage a more competitive organizational environment to increase watchfulness and reduce resistance to change.
• Implement results-oriented, decentralized management practices to support creativity and initiative.