Identifying skills, knowledge and capabilities of skilled social innovators - a checklist for Social Change-Making 101

These notes are part of the discussions around the development of the Social Change-making 101 program:

Not all social innovators need to be expert in all of the skills below but these are a suggested list of core skills they should have some awareness of.

Social innovators are not the same as social entrepreneurs though the roles often overlap.  Social entrepreneurs are usually the initiators and key leaders of a social innovation project or enterprise, who recognise the need or opportunity and create the core team to design, fund and implement it. Not all social enterprises are social innovations, some just reproduce a successfully tested and tried program.

The following list is a first pass designed to get your views on what we have missed or what from this list is least relevant as we make difficult decisions on what to include or exclude from this introductory program. Additional content might form a more advanced program to be developed later.

• I have been part of the 'core team' that has designed and led the successful implementation of one or more new social change projects or initiatives 
• I have undertaken a careful assessment of one or more social innovation initiatives to assess cost-effectiveness and impact using one or more of the assessment tools available
• I have played an active role in understanding and defining a complex social or environmental problem (wicked problem) or need and consulted diverse stakeholders as part of this process
• I have researched local and international Initiatives in a project's field of interest to avoid duplication of effort and learn from relevant programs across a wide range of settings
• I have built an active support network of people with a diverse range of backgrounds and relevant expertise and who have a wide range of social innovation experience
• I have successfully secured financial and 'in kind' resources for social change projects from a diverse range of sources (government, foundations, private donors and investors) and I have a positive track-record with delivering to funder expectations 
• I am familiar and have worked with project management processes to design and implement social innovation projects
• I am able to work collaboratively in teams with a diverse range of people and can accept positive and negative feedback and adapt my behaviour accordingly.  I know my own strengths and weaknesses.
• I have experience in using a range of social innovation tools and methods from fields such as social networking, community organising, market research, service design