Mark Holmgren

More about the Game-Changer Approach to Poverty Reduction

As some of you know, I have written about and I am continuing to work on what I call a Game-Changer Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategy and Evaluation. You can read my initial paper HERE. And a recording of a webinar I did with Mark Cabaj is HERE. I have been asked about the differenceContinue reading “More about the Game-Changer Approach to Poverty Reduction”

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Movement Building and Collective Impact

In an article written for Fast Company, Kaihan Krisppendorff, identifies four steps to building an effective social movement, which I have adapted below: 1. A community forms around a common goal or aspiration. 2. The community mobilizes its resources to act on the goal/aspiration. 3. The community crafts solutions and acts to deliver them. 4. The movementContinue reading “Movement Building and Collective Impact”

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Simplicity and Complexity

The top drawing suggests there is complexity to the journey from A to B. That journey requires numerous loop backs before moving forward and takes the traveler up and down and back and forth along the way until the destination is reached. Who knows the reasons why the journey was somewhat unpredictable or if thereContinue reading “Simplicity and Complexity”

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Maybe there are simple solutions to complex problems.

There appears to be a common perception among some thought leaders that complex problems require complex solutions. I am not arguing against that perspective except to ask, if it is always true? In my early life as a consultant to non-profit organizations I was involved in developing software, databases primarily, that were purposed to helpContinue reading “Maybe there are simple solutions to complex problems.”

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Watch out for the solution bias

Solutions are exciting, especially those you are a part of creating, but even if the ideas behind them were not your own, implementing a new solution is an intellectual turn-on. Sometimes there is even an ego-boost one experiences when part of something on the “cutting edge.” I wonder though if at least some of theContinue reading “Watch out for the solution bias”

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Thinking about the Charity Model and Systems Change Debate

There has been a movement afoot for the past 15 to 20 years that evolved out of a growing dissatisfaction with the charitable sector or more to the point, the Charity Model. Critics of the sector are nothing new, of course. And these criticisms are often based on unproven perceptions (e.g. there are too manyContinue reading “Thinking about the Charity Model and Systems Change Debate”

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Disruptive Innovation: a Type of Upside Down Thinking

Upside Down Thinking has a relationship with Disruptive Thinking and Disruptive Innovation, but they are not merely different descriptors of the same thing. You can read a previous posting I did a while back on Upside Down Thinking; this posting is about Disruptive Innovation. Disruptive Innovation has its roots in the private sector. The conceptContinue reading “Disruptive Innovation: a Type of Upside Down Thinking”