Frameworks
Successfully addressing vital social issues—like the movement for racial justice and addressing climate crises—requires large-scale initiatives that address equity, complexity, and systems. By understanding how systems changes are occurring, social change actors can see the full spectrum of change that is possible, and gain vital knowledge for strategic development, and ultimately drive more powerful results. In this update to Impact, Influence, Leverage, and Learning (I2L2), we offer ways of grouping systems change outcomes and helpful ways of thinking about complex social change work.
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Articles
From 2019–2022, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities carried out a Safety Net Initiative (SNI). SNI supported state advocates and their partners to pursue two broad aims: (1) to protect and strengthen economic security policies, and (2) to strengthen short- and longer-term capacity around equitable advocacy practices and narrative change efforts. ORS Impact worked with advocates in Washington State—to write a case study that tells the story of their efforts to advance equitable advocacy capacity and an equitable tax code.
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How-Tos
Process tracing is a causal methodology that can help people understand how a particular large-scale change actually happened within a complex dynamic environment. Much of the existing literature provides important information about the method; we wrote this brief to help more people operationalize the concepts and learn about practical steps for using this method more easily, with quality, and toward a more equitable world.
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Briefs / Reports
In 2018, the Organizational Effectiveness (OE) team at The David and Lucile Packard Foundation funded 10 organizations to explore ways to listen to or meaningfully engage the people and communities their work impacts and identify promising practices for how advocacy organizations can better listen to those at the heart of their work. ORS Impact worked to document learnings from these grants, including what it looks like and what it takes for advocacy organizations to meaningfully connect with the people their work impacts.
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