This toolbox was created to help support the main players of the social innovation (SI) space. If you are actively creating solutions to today's greatest societal challenges or supporting these solutions through intermediary services, then this toolbox is for you. The toolbox provides tools that all actors can use to create, develop, measure and assess SIs.
In the face of growing societal challenges, SIs craft unique solutions to unmet social needs. Having multiple objectives, SIs requires business models that differ from traditional models. SI business models are: (i) configured around finding complementarity between antagonistic assets (resource combinations that from the start hinder the commercialization or marketing of a product or service) and seemingly conflicting logics; (ii) often structured around a divergence in the allocation of cost, use and benefit leading to multiple value propositions; (iii) modelled on multi-actor/multi-sided business strategies; (iv) developed as frugal solutions and through actions of bricolage.
Social Innovators: individuals or groups who have found solutions to the mounting social
challenges facing our societies today.
Intermediaries: organizations or experts who support the development of social
innovations through consulting and incubation services and network facilitation.
Social Innovators: this toolbox will help you test and assess your idea,
develop and/or consolidate your solution and measure your impact.
Intermediaries: this toolbox provides useful instruments to use in each
phase of developing a social innovation
The SI Business Toolbox is designed to facilitate developing and/or improving SI business models. That is why we have designed the toolbox within the framework of our social innovation business model canvas. The canvas above is therefore more than one of the many analytical devices or tools but rather the gateway for the design toolbox as the end objective.