This is the second in a series of articles giving you a sneak peek into the development of TACSI’s next strategy. In the last article we shared the approach and thinking we’ve been using to develop the strategy and the routine burn that gave ourselves some time back to focus on our evolution.
In this article, we share three of the lessons we’ve learnt from 15 years of doing and pursuing social innovation in Australia.
LESSON 1
People rarely ask for social innovation
In 15 years of work, there’s not more than a handful of organisations that have approached us explicitly asking for social innovation. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen it in an RFQ. This has caused us a few existential crises over the years, but we’re not planning on changing our name any time soon. What people do seek out is social innovation capabilities and practices specific to the situation in hand.
LESSON 2
Innovations don’t scale as well as practices do
When TACSI started, we focused a lot on scaling social innovations. We ran a national challenge funding social innovations across Australia, and developed a Radical Redesign team to use design based approaches to develop new social innovations, including Family by Family and Weavers.
There were some great successes from that work. Fourteen years on, Family by Family is still alive and well in South Australia, and for a brief period was operational in NSW (three years) and UK (one year) with the support of progressive funders. Weavers has now been delivered in over four countries and across 20 sites.
But if we look back over what is now 15 years of work at TACSI, it’s not innovations that have scaled, but practices and an understanding of scaled support. For example, our work supporting organisations to build their peer-to-peer capability (the peer practice evidenced in innovations like Family by Family and Weavers) has now supported the development of 11 different innovations, in four countries, in areas including palliative care and young parents, as well as the development of long-term strategies to improve the conditions for the uptake of peer-to-peer (for example, SA’s Department of Human Services Peer Workforces strategy).
LESSON 3
There are many different approaches to social innovation
Looking back over 15 years of work, there are at least eight significant practices we’ve worked with. Eight ways of working that are not yet widespread, yet feel like they have an important role to play in helping us navigate the complexities of the 21st century: co-design, systems innovation, community innovation, allyship, impact networks, social R&D, and just futures.
Done well, they all support the development of systems awareness, imagination and give real power to people experiencing marginalisation. We didn’t invent any of them, nor do we hold a monopoly on them - what we have been able to do is localise them for Australia, show what they look like in practice, building the capability of others to do them, and occasionally shape policy and commissioning conditions to increase uptake (as we’ve done in SA with peer to peer).
Our emerging strategy
Collectively, these lessons are directing us to a new strategy that:
Packages social innovation in ways that are relevant to different contexts: for government, communities, philanthropy and NGOs etc.
Scales social innovation practices.
Works across three settings: public service systems, communities, and our collective imagination.
TACSI’s engagement with social innovation practices over time
Co-design
Collaboratively designing services and policies by combining lived, research and practice expertise.
Peer-to-Peer
Designing services that connect people with shared life experience to create meaningful change.
Systems Innovation
Transforming complex systems through collaboration that centres diverse and lived perspectives.
Community Innovation
Building local capability and infrastructure so communities can lead their own change.
Allyship
Action in solidarity with First Nations people to advance reconciliation.
Impact Networks
Connecting changemakers through shared purpose, deep relationships and aligned systemic action.
Social R&D
Creating reliable systems for continuous, effective social purpose innovation.
Just Futuring
Catalysing action for fairer futures by connecting diverse knowledges, people and possibilities.
Indigenous Systems Knowledge
Applying Indigenous ways of knowing to address systemic challenges that affect us all.