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FSG is a mission-driven consulting firm supporting leaders in creating large-scale, lasting social change. Through strategy, evaluation, and research we help many types of actors - individually and collectively - make progress against the world's toughest problems. Our teams work across all sectors by partnering with leading foundations, businesses, nonprofits, and governments in every region of the globe. We seek to reimagine social change by identifying ways to maximize the impact of existing resources, amplifying the work of others to help advance knowledge and practice, and inspiring change agents around the world to achieve greater impact.

This book is about effective change. It describes methods for changing "whole systems,"that is, change based on two powerful foundation assumptions: high involvement and a systemic approach to improvement. High involvement means engaging the people in changing their own system.It is systemic because there is a conscious choice to include the people,functions,and ideas that can affect or be affected by the work.Whole system change methods help you initiate high-leverage, sustainable improvements in organizations or communities. "High-leverage" is emphasized because in any improvement effort,we want the highest possible value for the effort invested. We believe that involving people in a systematic way is a key to high leverage and that the methods in this book can provide this leverage for you.You'll need to determine the one(s) best suited to moving your organization or community to the culture you want.We wrote this book to support your efforts. 

Blue Marble Evaluation is a global initiative focused on training the next generation of evaluators to Think Globally, Act Globally and Evaluate Globally. It was launched by Utilization-Focused Evaluation in the Fall of 2015 with a generous pilot grant from the Faster Forward Fund in partnership with World Savvy and continues with support from the McKnight Foundation.

We are a collegial, peer-driven community of foundation and nonprofit communications professionals who share ideas, evidence, and lessons about how smart communications improve lives. Through meetings and events, publications, social outreach, and an online community, we elevate the role of communications across the social sector. We help our members build relationships, skills, and confidence to navigate a shifting information landscape and to be a voice for change that benefits both individuals and society.

It is vital that we understand the physical nature of wealth so we can envision and build economic systems that are capable of (1) reducing chronic inequality in the world; (2) recognizing the inherent value of nature as a foundational building block for any economic system; and (3) exploring the 'design space' of all possible economic systems to find those best suited for planetary sustainability.

The Digital Civil Society Lab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society created digitalIMPACT.io to support civil society organizations in using digital data ethically, safely, and effectively. The content and tools on the site come from nonprofit and foundation partners. digitalIMPACT.io is designed to help you learn from and share with others. The materials are provided as examples to inform your decision-making, organizational practice, and policy creation. We invite you to use and adapt what you find here, and hope you will share the practices and policies that you've developed. This website is only a start; real change will come as organizations integrate appropriate data management and governance throughout their work.

"From transforming conditions for low-wage workers to identifying internet security vulnerabilities, from celebrating the African American string band tradition to designing resilient urban habitats, these new MacArthur Fellows bring their exceptional creativity to diverse people, places, and social challenges. Their work gives us reason for optimism and inspires us all."

About Vibrant Planet Vibrant Planet is building a global adaptive management system to accelerate natural carbon drawdown, while mitigating immediate climate change impacts. The team's initial focus is restoring Western US forests to mitigate wildfire risk while stabilizing carbon, water reliability, and biodiversity through a critically-needed data foundation and tech platform that supports better decision making at the ground level. The platform addresses other related issues, including wildland-urban interface risk mitigation and land use planning.   

Public spaces are an important part of Knight Foundation's work in cities and the communities where we invest. We believe that great public spaces have the power to transform cities. They are where neighbors can meet and residents can enjoy local arts and culture, take a jog or spend time with family. They help to advance civic engagement and the attachment people feel to their cities - both necessities for creating more informed and engaged communities. Recent research by the Center for Active Design shows that public spaces can help to facilitate community connection, trust and involvement.

"CrowdDoing is a joint initiative of Reframe It Inc. and Match4Action Foundation that is focused on helping address the UN Sustainable Development Goals and beyond through micro-leadership, massively multi-disciplinary collaboration, and service learning to support social innovation and social enterprise to achieve systemic change. "

The Knight Digital Media Center @ USC Annenberg is dedicated to increasing the flow of critical news and information by helping organizations and community leaders develop digital skills and strategies for the 21st Century. The Center provides training and resources in several formats including self-directed web-based learning modules, instructor-led virtual classes as well as conferences and workshops throughout the country. In addition, the Center offers customized training and consultation to organizations seeking to engage their communities on critical issues.

The Election Toolkit is a place where any election official can find communication tools that are recommended and tested by other election officials. Each tool includes information about why to use it, as well as step-by-step instructions on how to best use each tool.

The step-by-step framework outlined in this section describes a model Heart & Soul process using four phases and eleven steps. Each phase is built around specific learning, capacity building or engagement goals, and together they lead to the overall project goals.

If we want a high-growth society with broadly shared prosperity, and if we want to avoid dislocations like the one we have just gone through, we need to change our theory of action foundationally. We need to stop thinking about the economy as a perfect, self-correcting machine and start thinking of it as a garden.

About Nesta is the UK's innovation foundation. We are an independent charity with a mission to help people and organisations bring great ideas to life. Mission We were set up to help turn great ideas into successful innovations that change lives for the better. Company Overview We help bring great ideas to life. We do this by providing investments and grants and mobilising research, networks and skills.

United We Serve is a nationwide service initiative that helps meet growing social needs resulting from the economic downturn. With the knowledge that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things when given the proper tools, President Obama is asking us to come together to help lay a new foundation for growth. This initiative aims to both expand the impact of existing organizations by engaging new volunteers in their work and encourage volunteers to develop their own "do-it-yourself" projects.

An initiative involving a series of Art-Dialogue Community Workshops in both St. Catharines and Fort Erie exploring ways to deepen connections across Age & Culture. Many thanks for the Ontario Trillium Foundation for funding this project.

The Edward Lowe Foundation has developed an interactive resource center that allows users to explore economic activity in their own regions-and across the country. YourEconomy.org (YE) provides detailed information about the performance of businesses from a national to a local perspective by following individual establishments who have a DUNS number. Of particular significance, YE depicts a dynamic journey of how business communities are evolving through time as opposed to traditional research and data sources that focus on a static moment.

The information in our study covers the city of Long Beach, Calif. In each community, the Knight Soul of the Community study identified factors that emotionally attach residents to where they live