Lean Experimentation for the Social Sector
Presented by:
Peter Murray, president, Accelerate Change
Steve Ma, senior partner, Accelerate Change
Palak Shah, social innovations director, National Domestic Workers Alliance; founding director, Fair Care Labs
Justin Ruben, cofounder and executive director, ParentsTogether
Moderated by:
Michael Slind, senior editor, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Date: June 16, 2015
Time: 11:00 a.m.–12:00 noon PDT, 2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m. EDT
For nonprofits and other social purpose organizations, the work of developing, testing, and launching new programs and services for beneficiaries can be cumbersome and expensive. What if you could increase the speed and lower the cost of that process? What if you could make the work of innovation lean? In the business sector, many companies have embraced lean experimentation—a practice that reduces waste and enables rapid implementation of promising ideas. Today, an increasing number of social sector organizations are successfully using the lean method as well.
Peter Murray and Steve Ma from Accelerate Change will provide a step-by-step overview of the lean experimentation process and explain how it applies to the social sector. In addition, two guest presenters will provide specific examples of using lean strategies within their organizations. Palak Shah, director of social innovations for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, will discuss lean experiments that her organization has conducted to develop mission-aligned business ventures and private-sector partnerships. Justin Ruben, cofounder of ParentsTogether and former executive director of MoveOn.org, will describe the use of lean experimentation both in a start-up environment (ParentsTogether) and in an established advocacy organization (MoveOn.org).
“Lean Experimentation for the Social Sector” will be of interest to leaders at social purpose organizations who are eager to improve the processes that they use to create new programs and services. Grantmakers who seek to help grantees improve the efficiency and the quality of their work will also benefit from this webinar. During the latter half of the session, registrants will be able to direct questions to Murray, Ma, Shah, and Ruben. Michael Slind of Stanford Social Innovation Review will moderate the webinar.
Price: $49, which includes access to the live webinar; unlimited access to the webinar as many times as you’d like for twelve months; and downloadable slides. To view previous and upcoming webinars in the SSIR Live! webinar series, go to www.ssireview.org/webinars.
Speaker Bios
Peter Murray, president, Accelerate Change
Peter Murray is the president of Accelerate Change, a citizen organizing incubator. Accelerate Change helps progressive citizen organizations and funders test scalable models for citizen organizing. Murray has fifteen years of experience leading and supporting social ventures and nonprofits. He was the founder and president of the Empowerment Group, a business incubator and entrepreneurship training center in Philadelphia. For eight years, Murray was president of the Center for Progressive Leadership, a national training institute for nonprofit and civic leaders that has trained and mentored over 6,000 promising nonprofit and civic leaders. Murray was also cofounder and executive vice president of the I Do Foundation, a national social justice foundation, and CEO of Image Contractors, a community-based construction company in Philadelphia. For his leadership in the nonprofit sector, Murray received the Eli Segal Entrepreneurship Award, the Eugene Lang Community Service Award, and was selected for Fast Company Magazine’s 2002 “Fast 50,” which honors 50 leaders from around the world who are reshaping their sectors.
Steve Ma, senior partner, Accelerate Change
Steve Ma is a senior partner at Accelerate Change, a citizen organizing incubator. Accelerate Change helps progressive citizen organizations and funders test scalable models for citizen organizing. Ma has been a leader in the social change arena for more than two decades. He founded and ran Live Green, a social enterprise focused on building a new, thriving green economy. Ma also held senior positions at AARP, directed campaign offices for the Sierra Club and the state PIRGs, coordinated an environmental petition drive which generated 1.2 million physical signatures, and helped to bring about the passage of several environmental, good government, and health policies. In 2001, Asianweek named Ma their Asian American of the Year for his innovative work to reduce the influence of big money in politics.
Justin Ruben, cofounder and executive director, ParentsTogether
As cofounder and executive director of ParentsTogether, Justin Ruben is building a multi-racial, cross-class national parents’ organization focused on improving parents daily lives and winning policies that help families and kids. Previously, as MoveOn.org’s organizing director and then executive director, Ruben oversaw MoveOn's landmark campaigns for health care reform and ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, helped create MoveOn's field organizing program, and launched its national network of local volunteer councils. He was an organizer for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union in CT and Pesticide Watch in CA. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Autumn, and kids, Osa and Rime.
Palak Shah, social innovations director, National Domestic Workers Alliance; founding director, Fair Care Labs
Palak Shah is the social innovations director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). She is also the founding director of Fair Care Labs, NDWA's innovation arm focused on entrepreneurial, market-based, and private sector strategies to improve working conditions, services and employment opportunities for domestic workers. Shah's career spans the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Most recently, she was leader at Wellmont Health System, leading strategic responses to the ACA. She also was a member of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s Administration powerful budget team and subsequently served as the Commonwealth’s Deputy Director of Performance Management. Shah has worked as a management consultant at Accenture’s strategy practice, trained as a community organizer in Los Angeles, and cofounded the international public health nonprofit Visions Worldwide. Shah received a dual degree in political science and broadcast journalism from Northwestern University. She received a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she was awarded the prestigious Public Service Fellowship and Presidential Scholarship.
Michael Slind, senior editor, Stanford Social Innovation Review
Michael Slind is senior editor of Stanford Social Innovation Review. He has extensive experience as a writer, editor, and publishing professional. Slind is coauthor, with Boris Groysberg, of Talk, Inc.: How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power Their Organizations (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). Previously, he worked at Harvard Business School, where he wrote widely used case studies on corporate strategy and entrepreneurial management. Earlier in his career, he served as managing editor and as a senior editor at Fast Company magazine.
