Social Change 2.0 Study Circle Discussion Guide

How the Study Circle Works

Purpose

Types of Groups That Could Benefit

• Nonprofit organizations with an explicit social change mission.
• Community groups, neighborhood and block associations furthering a livability, carbon reduction, sustainability, or resiliency initiative.
• Faith-based social action committees.
• Government agencies furthering social change.
• Foundations, corporations, and government grant programs wishing to increase their social return on investment.
• Social and environmental entrepreneurs wishing to enhance the social change dimension of their initiative.
• College and high school classes engaged in action or service learning initiatives, and extracurricular clubs devoted to furthering social change.
• Large corporations and small to medium size enterprises wishing to develop the social change potential of their business and/or volunteer program.
• Service clubs wishing to enhance the effectiveness of a community initiative.
• Social networks wishing to further social change around an area of common interest to group members.
• A book club that wishes to tackle a need in society.

How the Discussion Group Works

1. A motivated individual invites group members to apply the book’s ideas to their social change initiative(s). This website is a helpful resource for introducing the book to group members.
2. The recommended group size is 6 to 12 people with meeting facilitation rotated among the group members.
3. The primary formats are (six) weekly one-hour meetings discussing two chapters a week; or (twelve) weekly one-hour meetings discussing a chapter a week. For groups working in the same office, lunch hours are a good time for such meetings. These formats can be adapted to best meet the needs of the group.
4. The discussions are based on the questions at the end of the twelve chapters called the “Social Change 2.0 Practitioner’s Guide.” These questions are also listed on the website under “Community of Practice.”
5. In the six-meeting format the facilitator selects five discussion questions from among the ten that are listed at the end of the two chapters being discussed during that meeting. The twelve-meeting format utilizes all five questions at the end of each chapter.
6. Before each meeting participants read the chapter(s) under discussion and write out their answers to the assigned questions.

Meeting Format

1. To build the social connectivity of the community, each individual shares with the group a brief update from their life. – 10 minutes
2. Group divides into pairs to discuss the five answers they prepared. – 15 minutes
3. Group members share insights from answering the questions and the partner discussion. – 10 minutes
4. Group does a deep dive into one or two questions most important to their social change initiative. If there are multiple social change initiatives, they can be rotated among the different meetings. – 20 minutes
5. Reading and questions to answer are assigned for the next meeting. – 5 minutes

Practitioner Guide Questions From Each of the Chapters in the Book

Chapter 1

1. What is your dream—large or small—for making our world a better place?
2. What about it inspires you?
3. What about it do you think will inspire others to participate in it?
4. What are you doing to bring it into realization?
5. What allows you to keep your faith in its possibility?

Chapter 2

1. What is the societal problem or unmet societal need your initiative addresses?
2. What are the “how-to” questions you must answer for your social change initiative to be perceived as effective?
3. What is the social learning process you need to develop to answer these questions?
4. What does success look like for your social change initiative and how will you measure it?
5. What are the benefits your social change strategy offers to attract people to participate?

Chapter 3

1. Within what larger social system does your change strategy fit?
2. How can you improve the social change performance of your initiative by developing synergy among the major stakeholders in this larger system?
3. What percentage of your social change initiative’s time is spent on visioning/awareness-raising activities versus measurable behavior change and tangible societal improvements?
4. What can you do to build a more robust back end of measurable behavior change and tangible societal improvements into your initiative?
5. What specific ways can you use community to further the outcomes of your social change initiative?

Chapter 4

1. What is the potential for a public/private partnership in furthering your social change initiative?
2. What is your approach for forming strategic partnerships?
3. What communication protocols do you need to collaborate well with a strategic partner?
4. What is your plan for bringing diverse people into your social change initiative?
5. What is your strategy to help volunteers sustain their commitment to your social change initiative over time?

Chapter 5

1. What would a vision-oriented framing of your social change initiative look like?
2. What are the behaviors people need to adopt to achieve the objectives of your social change initiative?
3. What is your approach to help them adopt and continue to evolve these behaviors?
4. How are you supporting the personal development of the volunteers and staff involved in your social change initiative?
5. What are you doing to further your personal development as a social change agent?

Chapter 6

1. What transformative leadership skills do you need to further your social change initiative?
2. Of these, which are your strengths and which do you need to develop further?
3. What is your transformative change strategy?
4. What obstacles must you overcome to implement your strategy and how will you overcome them?
5. What is your next growing edge as a transformative change leader? State as an intention and visual image.

Chapter 7

1. What does changing the game in your arena of social change look like?
2. What would allow your social innovation to be a game changer?
3. What are the success metrics for each of its three stages—prototype, demonstration, and scale-up?
4. How could you integrate aspiration and inspiration into the architecture of your transformative social innovation?
5. What is required for your transformative social innovation to be a whole solution?

Chapter 8

1. What is your strategy to develop the synergy potential of your social change initiative?
2. What are the unitive practices you need to deploy to create a greater
   connection among the key players in your initiative?
3. What are the unitive practices you need to deploy to create greater
   cooperation among the key groups or organizations in your initiative?
4. Where do you need a creative breakthrough for your social change
   initiative to realize its potential?
5. How might you use the collaboration tools described in this chapter to help achieve this creative breakthrough?

Chapter 9

1. What is the diffusion strategy for your social change initiative?
2. Who are the early-adopter networks and organizations for your social change initiative and what specific benefits will appeal to each of them?
3. Who are the opinion leaders within these organization and networks and how will you reach them?
4. What tools and training are needed to assist change agents in communicating to their peer groups about your social change initiative?
5. What is your media strategy for building awareness about your social change initiative so those approached to participate are already primed?

Chapter 10

1. Whom do you need to empower to do what to further your social change initiative?
2. How will you empower these individuals?
3. How will you build the capacity of the people working on your social change initiative to be effective agents of transformative change?
4. How will your social change initiative transform the system in which it resides so it is capable of supporting it and other comparable initiatives?
5. If you wish to design or expand an existing curriculum on social change, how will it help students implement a behavior change strategy to further their social change initiative and facilitate their personal growth as change agents?

Chapter 11

1. Because global warming requires all hands on deck, what role do you see yourself playing?
2. What role will your social change initiative play in addressing global warming?
3. How might you use the Social Change 2.0 framework to play a transformative role?
4. What is the synergy potential between your social change initiative and a Cool Community campaign taking place in your city or town?
5. What role might your social change initiative play in creating or supporting a Cool Community campaign?

Chapter 12

1. Who is the “other” for your social change initiative?
2. What could you do to reach out and befriend these people or organizations?
3. What unitive practices would assist you in this effort?
4. Who do you perceive as the “other” in your life in general?
5. What could you do to reach out and befriend these people?

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