Community-led community change

Launchers

Ordinary citizens can become extraordinary change leaders.
It's our mission and our metrics.

What outcomes do we seek? How do these outcomes align with our programs?

Our mission is far-reaching: invite and enable community members to envision, design, and launch innovative, sustainable solutions to our most pressing challenges.

We teach community members how to become real social entreprenuers and to launch a social business. Local Agenda invites citizens to consider a life improving our world. Our key metric is simple: How many citizens actually launch social businesses to improve our world? We not only count that straightoforward number, we also look at the stages people move through as they engage with us. Important benchmarks help us identify strengths in the program, such as how many participants create a vision and personal manifesto? How many buy a domain name in preparation for a Web site? How many register their corporation with the state? Each of these is a benchmark of success and progress towards real change. More about Local Agenda...

We convene activists and supporters. Once "launchers" have determined to launch a social venture, they need to build their network. They increase their expertise and build coalitions. We created the Springboard Social Innovation Forum to bring these emerging community leaders together to improve practice, build strong systems of change, and share ideas. More about the Forum...

We help with start-up funds. In order to launch real change we help fill the gap of seed funding. ChangeXchange connects community funders to community leaders fostering local Communities of Support. We measure activity on the site, transfer of viewer to investor, the number of relational connections that lead to progress for the launcher, and of course, dollars invested. Read more about ChangeXchange... and Invest Your Share!

We help build the ecosystem for social innovation. Finally, it is clear that leaders can only do so much on their own. Our current municipal ecosystems are still bound by the classic model of business, which forces innovators back into the traditional box. Cities need a toolkit for how to attract and nurture social innovators. We developed an eight-point model of how a city creates the conditions under which social innovation will flourish. Cities can self-assess to identify strengths and weaknesses, list existing resources, and search other city sites for ideas. More about Innovative Cities...

Teach, convene, fund, build -- our mission, our metrics.


 

RESULTS

Paul Osterlund, Founder of Abundance Farming Project

QUICK DATA:

Local Agenda Program
-->76% of Local Agenda graduates are launching or plan to launch a social venture.
--> Age span: 23 - 72
--> 98% state program is of "high value."
--> 98% state program "met or exceeded their goals."
-->For complete list of comments, download .pdf.

LOCAL AGENDA PARTICIPANTS SAY...

“The organizational information was incredibly valuable, both to the nonprofits I am involved with, but as a good business model. Taking the time to figure out what it is that I do love was quite difficult, but very valuable. Going through the process was very useful.”

“Local Agenda gives you the space, the guidance, the support, the connections to take a step you’ve been wanting to take.”

“Each cohort produces a group of people who can see differently, can be more imaginative in problem-solving. And they/we seem to have the gumption to actually do something about the problems we see.”