The Second Wednesday of Every Month

6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Join the social innovators in your community to learn, plan, and grow.

February 2010 Forum: A Forum to Begin Building a Local Ecosystem to Support Social and Environmental Innovation.

What's changing in the world of social change? Social entrepreneurship has taken center stage as a path to social and environmental innovation, creating opportunities for lasting change through new kinds of approaches and organizations. A social enterprise has the same operational, administrative, marketing, and legal needs as any other business, but the rules have changed and the services in our cities haven't kept up. Join us as we implement Innovative Cities here in Portland, Oregon first before it moves out across the nation. Help build the field for real social and environmental change.

We begin a soft launch of Innovative Cities,
a framework for building city-wide support structures
to nurture and sustain social innovators. Join us.

Held Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Olympic Mills Think Tank, Second Floor

Tristan Scott of Brewhouse Studio documents action teams. Nick Tostenrude and Mary Grace Hinkle facilitate the group addressing two of the eight elements "Communication" and "Financial Access" alongside Ken Carerro, Erin Fitzgerald, Karen Shimada, and others. Of the ideas generated in this group, one question arose related to Communication--who are we trying to reach? One answer was "young people." That started a great discussion about how to reach young people and engage them in authentic ways. In other words, how is education a form of communication?

Anna Raksany of Springboard facilitates the group focused on "Engagement Pathways" and "Professional Support". Eric Maher catches me taking the photo, while Cheryl, Will, Julie, Auda, Mark, and Alex share ideas for Engagement Pathways. The discussion covered how to engage people in social innovation, both as leaders and as supporters. It was a wonderful conversation about how pathways are not always direct, but that somehow we still have to put "a stake in the ground," as Will suggested. Of all elements, the pathways to engage challenge us to think creatively about new voices, channels, and opportunities.

Blake Schmidt's group discussed "Convenings" and "Networks and Member Organziations" looking at how they both nurture and sustain social innovation. The resulting advice of many of the groups was "get creative." Whether we cross into other disciplines and sectors or create entirely new avenues and tools, we have to imagine new ways of reaching out and connecting.

We encourage you to join this team. Email us at innovativecities@springboardinnovation.org or call 503.452.6898. We're assembling teams, City Champion teams, and sponsors.