Etmanski’s first three Patterns to Spread Your Social Innovation have been comfortable to comprehend.  Think and Act Like a Movement, Create a Container for Your Content, Set the Table for Allies, Adversaries are not easy but they make sense.

The fourth pattern, Mobilize Your Economic Power, is not so easy.  It means having conversations about assets, profits, liabilities, customers, marketing strategy and cash flows.  Notice words like funding, grants, beneficiaries and outcomes do not appear.

It makes me a bit squeamish because mobilizing economic power requires the not-for-profit organization to participate in the markets creating many of the injustices it is trying to correct.  I have a natural visceral reaction against the idea.  How can we talk about assets in one meeting and the suffering of people in the next?

It seems wrong.

However, after setting aside my discomfort, I realize Etmanski is encouraging me to uncover new possibilities for systemic impact.  Identifying economic power gives me access to more levers to alleviate or eliminate the suffering of people I serve.  Most importantly, can I really say I am serving people well if I’m not accessing all the avenues open to me just because it makes me squeamish?

What would change about the way you do your work if your organization was presented with a check for $10 million?

Likely your organization would shift mindsets from “scarcity to abundance” and from “victim to agent”.  Etmanski believes we shouldn’t wait for the check.  Find our economic leverage points and use them to become an independent fearless agent for change.

Five Ways to Mobilize Your Economic Power

Admittedly, I became a bit foul as I read through these.  They seem impractical and inaccessible until I read it from the perspective of a person seeking to move an idea from the local context to the mainstream.

• “Influencing the Operational Practice of Business” – really this is about disrupting the way it has always been done.  Etmanski uses an example of the environmental activist shifting her attention from blocking logging trucks to developing a process for recycling paper so the publishing industry would no longer use virgin forest products.  She blocked the logging trucks using the market instead of her body.
• “Commercializing Intellectual Property” – Take stock of your intellectual property and see how it might generate revenue for your beneficiaries/clients.  Charge market value for it!
• “Nurturing a Sharing Economy” – Besides the conventional market, not-for-profits are uniquely positioned to tap into the world of swapping, bartering, and lending.
• “Purchasing Locally” – Buying your office supplies from Walmart might be cheaper, but much of profits associated with that transaction are siphoned out of the community.  Buying your office supplies from a local business increases the likelihood that profits will be recycled into the local community.
• “Starting a Social-Purpose Business” – Becoming an entrepreneur by forming a business that focusses on financial return and social impact.

Impact: Six Patterns to Spread Your Social Innovation by Al Etmanski is a guide for social innovators to move their idea from localized success to broader systemic impact.