So many of the assumptions we have been operating with as a human community have proven faulty that we must literally re-envision them. And with the accelerating unraveling of our planet’s life support system and the deterioration of so many of our social systems, we are being called on to create rapid transformative change. But the current social change tools at our disposal of governmental command and control, financial incentives and citizen protest— Social Change 1.0—were designed for slow-moving, incremental change.

Not only must we reinvent our world, but also the process by which we achieve this reinvention. According to systems theory, when the current solutions prove inadequate for the magnitude of change required, a system goes into stress and begins to breakdown. What is required to help the system evolve is a second order change solution—or solution capable of transforming and reorganizing it at a higher level of performance and social value. Empowerment Institute’s Social Change 2.0 framework and methodology represents such a solution for our social systems.

Read more ...

To bring about the large scale transformations needed for humankind to evolve and enable us to have a viable planet to inhabit, we need leadership schooled in the competencies of transformative social change. With our planet on the line and with such a propitious opening for positive change available to us, this is not the time for change leaders to be foundering. We all need to be playing at our best. To that end Empowerment Institute has developed a variety of programs to build this capacity from our certification program, to our master class webinar series, to Social Change 2.0 study circles as well as other programs.

To learn more click here

What follows are four Empowerment Institute Social Change 2.0 initiatives. Each social innovation is designed to transform a high leverage social or environmental issue and is now scaling up.

1. Climate: Empower cities and their citizens in high carbon emitting countries with the agency to implement a second order change solution to climate change.
2. Development: Empower women throughout the developing world with the agency to transform the cycle of poverty and create thriving lives and communities.
3. Peace: Empower humanity with the agency and second order change tools to create peace on earth by 2030.
4. Reinventing the Planet: Empower humanity with the agency and a road map, strategies and tools to simultaneously achieve these global sustainable development goals and create our dreams for the world.

“The Cool Block is an exemplary how-to guide for local communities to make a significant impact on climate change. This program demonstrates the untapped potential of citizens to engage in this grassroots initiative in an effective and achievable way. Very cool, indeed!”
–Gavin Newsom, Lt. Governor of California, Author of Citizenville

 www.coolblock.org

IMAGINE is a global initiative for the empowerment of women. It enables women in challenging life circumstances in developing world countries to envision and create new possibilities for their life, family and community through participation in Empowerment Institute’s flagship transformational training program, the Empowerment Workshop. To learn more click here.

In 1986 at the height of the cold war a torch of peace was passed around the world. The First Earth Run, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund directly engaged twenty-five million people and 45 heads-of-state in 62 countries. Over a billion people watched the torch via the media circumnavigate the globe. For 86 days wherever the torch of peace went all wars stopped and the world was united as one. Since then this modern day mythic story embodying humanity’s noblest aspiration for peace on earth has continued to be told all over the world. To learn more click here.

Humanity is at a critical juncture in our evolution. Unless we rapidly change our trajectory as a species, our civilization will unravel. In many parts of the world this has already begun. The question is how do we change? It’s not like we have not tried. There are many dedicated and heroic change makers pouring their hearts and souls in trying to change the world, but they struggle to get traction. Yet they keep using the same approaches over and over again. What if the problem was not the world’s unwillingness to change, but the approaches we use to bring about change? What if how we thought about social change and what people were capable of achieving was the problem? Learn more.