"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
Do only technology companies have a corner on “network effects"—i.e. the magic that happens when users take on the work of growing networks to predominance because their transactional value is so clear? Think Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, Amazon, eBay, Uber, and the like.
Or, is there a way to adapt this phenomenon to design equally omnipresent Changemaking Networks by harnessing changemaking network effects between systems that should work together for common good, but don’t—with technology as a possible enabler, but not a founding prerequisite?
There is, says Sushmita Ghosh.
In the first network effects playbook for social entrepreneurs, she presents the five core principles and accompanying strategies for pulling this off, distilled from extensive interviews with the founding entrepreneurs of 20 pioneering global Changemaking Networks. These have successfully orchestrated the coming together of several systems, their players, and concerned citizens to serve positive social change goals —such as "Zero Homelessness", "Health Care Without Harm" and "Holding Power to Account"—harnessing changemaking network effects.
This playbook is a must-read for every social sector organization, company, funding agency, student, or concerned citizen who cares about a new way of organizing mass changemaking to outsmart and outpace the world’s biggest problems.
Written for action-takers, it leaves every reader with a clear sense about how to get started on building Changemaking Networks. Today.
Sushmita Ghosh
Sushmita Ghosh went from a highly successful career in journalism, working with every major mainstream publication in India, to playing various roles (over two decades) at Ashoka: Everyone a Changemaker, an organization that has defined and pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship globally.
She began as Ashoka’s country representative for India in 1989, helped Ashoka launch its new programs in Latin America, directed its European fundraising efforts, and in 1992, founded Ashoka’s “Changemakers,” which she evolved from a magazine for social entrepreneurship to the first online platform for open-source problem-solving for systemic social ills. That service now offers instruction in changemaking for organizations invested in social change as well as ordinary citizens, ultimately aspiring to form a self-energizing community of changemakers.
Ghosh later served as President of Ashoka from 2000 to 2005, and is currently on Ashoka’s Global Board of Directors. She is passionate about how mass changemaking can be organized to stay ahead of constantly morphing, giant social problems. This fuels her interest in learning, defining, and building a learning community around organizing frameworks designed to innovate well into the future.
