[Test Kitchen] The Social Change Cookbook

Welcome to the “test kitchen” for what will eventually become a compiled book on various ways to design, plan and implement social change interventions.

I am interested in hearing from others so I can improve, adapt or clarify the content before gathering all of the essays into one volume. Please do feel free to comment, or write directly (see contact info at end of essay).

I am also eager to find eventual collaborators for a second version of this book, which will include ingredients and tasty social change dishes from around the world. I have only included in this first volume what I know from my research, professional experience and exchanges with friends and colleagues. I am seeking new concepts, ideas, approaches — the ingredients, in short, for an expanded offering on how to promote social change.

Please get in touch if interested.

K.P. Greiner

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Introduction

This book gathers a range of concepts and approaches to be used by anyone interested in “cooking up” new ways to promote social change.

The sub-title, “great ingredients, no recipes” is there to remind us that while we can build on or emulate successful existing approaches, the differences in context, culture and available resources from one experience to another suggest that adaptation, rather than replication, is the more realistic aim.

This book presents ingredients independently, with the idea that multiple combinations are possible. A “modular” design process could be fruitful. It would involve placing many ingredients on a table, discussing them in a small group, as a larger team, or in a community setting, and then experimenting and improving until you find the design that suits the tastes and budgets of those to be involved in implementation.

Some key ideas guide this content and spirit of this book:

1. Nothing about us without us. We feature approaches that by design invite contributions from those intended to be involved in implementing or participating in a given social change approach.
2. Communities are resources, and potential change agents, not beneficiaries or targets.
3. Social change can and should involve community action, but many change processes also require service-side improvements and/or government investment, policies and action.
4. We live in an “infodemic,” with an abundance of circulating information and misinformation. This abundance has made it difficult to adequately digest and process the information we receive. Because of this, I am focusing here on “bite-sized” essays that can be read gradually, and used as small pieces used in larger tailor-made combinations.

There are four types of essays that will make up the final version of this book:

1. Key concepts and tools: These can be used as lenses as you design your social change approach. These include de-complicated versions of theories and models, planning tools, and resources that can guide the design of interventions, but which are not social change approaches themselves.
2. Social change approaches: Ranging from tried-and-true “classics” from the 1970s onward to newer approaches from the last two decades. In short, we will share 50 years worth of social change cuisine to consider for experimentation and use.
3. Ways to fail: A collection of “oops” moments and lessons learned. As designers like to say: “Fail faster to succeed sooner.” Why share only successes, when the learning from tying, and failing, can be so rich? My dad likes to say: “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” This final section of the book is dedicated to my dad, John A. Greiner.

Above all, these essays are designed to be short and practical. While they will be compiled into a book, the essays are also short enough to be “printable” on one page (more or less) and can be used in participatory intervention design sessions. The concepts and tools can be used to modify or strengthen various social change approaches. The ways of listening and learning can help you get insights before you start (formative research), learn how you are doing as you go (monitoring) and then measure what difference, if any, your intervention has made (evaluation).

For now, I’m trying to keep these essays as jargon-free as possible. You can let me know how I’m doing on that through the comments section or via email.

Thank you to everyone who reads these essays and joins me here “in the kitchen.” Contact: kgreiner-at-gmail.com.