Leveraging the Power of Networks for Social Impact

Social impact is becoming more and more of a priority in our culture, especially with the rise of Gen Z and their passion for social causes. Although we live in a time of increasing abundance, many in America and around the world are struggling to meet basic physical needs, not to mention crucial emotional and spiritual needs. With the rise of Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies, it is too early to know for sure which social issues will improve, get worse, or even what new problems will be created. Regardless of technological advances, human ingenuity and human relationships will be required to place resources into the hands of the disadvantaged and marginalized, especially when there is little to no profit to be made in the process.

There are different categories of problems that we tend to spend our resources solving. Some of these problems are complicated, while others are complex. Complicated problems are hard and involve many steps, but they are finite in nature. Think of designing a steam engine as a complicated problem. It involves many interlinking parts, but the number of smaller problems that must be solved to create such a machine are finite. Humans were able to do it without calculators or computer-assisted design, even though it required some of the brightest minds available at the time.

Complex problems are different. These types of challenges involve dynamic systems that interact with each other in a web of near infinite possibilities of outcomes and interconnections. They aren’t the kind of problems that you can just check off a list one by one, and many times they cannot be solved entirely because some things are nearly, if not completely impossible to predict or control. For example, predicting the weather is not a complicated problem, it is a complex problem. Through taking regional measurements like wind speed, temperature, barometric pressure, and other metrics, we try to reduce it into a complicated problem so that we can at least make meaningful predictions. But anyone who has ever gotten wet on a day the meteorologist predicted sunshine knows that we can only really make an educated guess. Why? Because the best we can do today is turn this complex problem into a complicated one, and it routinely falls short.

Most of the social issues that are getting primetime attention right now are not complicated, they are complex. They involve many factors that work together in an interconnected web of people, cultures, systems, governments, resource availability, and beyond. Poverty, for example, is a complex problem that depends on many different factors, including the decisions of individuals that are not within anyone’s control no matter how much we want to help. However, just because some problems may not be entirely solvable, it doesn’t mean we can’t drastically improve lives for others or that we don’t have a moral mandate to try to solve pieces of the puzzle.

To move the needle in solving hard problems, solo organizations will increasingly become ineffective as the complexity deepens due to technology and cultural realities. We must learn to form networks of like-minded organizations that share the same commitment in addressing the problems we care about. (For more information about the power of networks in solving large-scale issues and making a societal impact, check out the book “Impact Networks” by David Ehrlichman.) Learning to leverage the power of networks can enable diverse organizations with varying skillets to come together and meet specific needs. You do not have to be an expert at everything to make a difference, nor can you be. You may need to form teams to make a difference in the areas that matter to you and your team. The world is too complex, and the needs are too great to go alone. InfoSquirrelTM was designed to leverage the power of organizational networks to pursue more opportunities together. It provides a platform for like-minded organizations to form partnerships for specific problems and needs, and it contains a streamlined approach to sharing capability information without meetings and email. You can scan the “Opportunity Central” section to find opportunities other organizations are working on, and quickly request to join the effort and let them know how you can help. You can also form your own micro-networks for specific areas of interest so that you can quickly respond to opportunities and needs.

Our hope is that this tool will help you meet the right people and build the right connections to make the world a better place. To learn more about InfoSquirrelTM, visit www.infosquirrel.com and begin your journey.