About Social Change 2.0
So many of the assumptions we have been operating with as a human community have proven faulty that we must literally re-envision them. And with the accelerating unraveling of our planet’s life support system and the deterioration of so many of our social systems, we are being called on to create rapid transformative change. But the current social change tools at our disposal of governmental command and control, financial incentives and citizen protest— Social Change 1.0—were designed for slow-moving, incremental change.
Not only must we reinvent our world, but also the process by which we achieve this reinvention. According to systems theory, when the current solutions prove inadequate for the magnitude of change required, a system goes into stress and begins to breakdown. What is required to help the system evolve is a second order change solution—or solution capable of transforming and reorganizing it at a higher level of performance and social value. Empowerment Institute’s Social Change 2.0 framework and methodology represents such a solution for our social systems.
It has a simple and some might say radical premise: That the natural starting point for changing our world for the better is us. That taking personal responsibility to make the needed changes within ourselves and our communities is the foundation for changing our institutions, not the other way around. That people are willing to make these changes if empowered by a personal vision and the means to bring it to fruition. That these changes can be accelerated and reinforced with the right laws and financial incentives, but it begins with us.
To bring about this type of change we need leadership schooled in the competencies of transformative social change. With our planet on the line and with such a propitious opening for transformation available as the world struggles to reinvent itself, change leaders must be playing at their best. Empowerment Institute provides a blueprint to help change leaders do just that.
To learn more about the Social Change 2.0 framework, read the free download from the book's introduction, "Reinventing Social Change."
“Social Change 2.0 exhilarates. David Gershon has not just laid out a compelling and coherent blueprint for social change, but the vividly written stories he shares make us realize that what we thought was impossible can actually be achieved. Having been a political leader in Portland for twenty years, where I worked closely with David, I saw firsthand the power of his work to change the lives of thousands of people. He may well be the number one expert on social change in our country.”