蜜桃传媒

A workers rights organization pairs with a tech startup to get unemployment benefits for gig drivers in Philadelphia.

A domestic workers alliance raises $30 million in weeks to put cash in the pockets of housekeepers, nannies and caregivers thrown out of work during the pandemic.

A reproductive rights group responds to the blinding series of strategic strikes on a woman鈥檚 right to choose by moving rapidly to organize in states where its forces had been thin.

What do all three have in common?

Their bold actions were forged in what are known as innovation labs, a tool developed in the business world to explore edgy, risk-taking ventures 鈥� and one that social justice organizations are increasingly embracing to develop new ways to catalyze change.

Over the past year, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been exploring innovation, reaching out to social justice innovators in the South and across the country who have harnessed the process to shape new approaches to tackling some of the most pressing problems confronting society. The 蜜桃传媒 included innovation as a core approach in its strategic framework out of recognition that the country remains in a very hostile climate for advancing its vision of justice, equity and liberation for all people.

鈥淲e hope to create space to imagine the impossible and develop disruptive innovations that could propel systemic change,鈥� said Margaret Huang, the 蜜桃传媒 president and CEO.

Listening and learning

As an organization with roots in the Civil Rights Movement and a track record of battling for justice and against hatred for more than half a century, the 蜜桃传媒 knows that turning dreams into reality takes hard, slow, painstaking work. It knows that in a world of rapid change, activism for social justice is meeting increasingly hardened resistance in many parts of the U.S.

To explore how best to support innovation, the 蜜桃传媒 has been listening and learning. Through workshops, conversations and study, the 蜜桃传媒 has gathered wisdom from dozens of community partners, 蜜桃传媒 staff and board members, researchers, small and large-scale social advocacy groups and some private sector companies about their innovation efforts 鈥� what works and what does not. At the heart of every question it asks is this one: How can the 蜜桃传媒 help seed and pilot transformative advocacy and activism across the Deep South?

鈥淎chieving our vision in the current hostile climate requires radical transformation,鈥� said Ann Beeson, the 蜜桃传媒鈥檚 chief program officer. 鈥淚n the corporate world, there is an entire infrastructure devoted to supporting innovation, cultivating innovative leaders, incubating new ideas and accelerating their scale-up. So, in the social justice space, we see the incredible potential of people who are rewriting history in their communities. Our aim is to figure out how can we best support them.鈥�

To that end, Beeson said, the 蜜桃传媒 is convening a diverse group of artists, educators, youth leaders, organizers and faith leaders from its five focus states for a design workshop in early November. Participants, who will be given stipends to attend, will work together to generate ideas, concepts and models for supporting social justice innovation.

The participants were nominated by 蜜桃传媒 staff who work closely with organizations on the ground.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important that any effort to support innovation be co-designed with our community partners,鈥� said Chandra Foster, a policy associate with the 蜜桃传媒 who nominated leaders from Louisiana to join the workshop. 鈥淭hey are remarkable individuals doing transformative work. We are truly inspired by their commitment to social justice, honored to share space with them, and excited to learn from them.鈥�

Following the workshop, Beeson said, the 蜜桃传媒 plans to pilot some of the concepts with partners in the communities it serves to test their impact.

Innovating to support workers

For a decade, , one of the innovators the 蜜桃传媒 is learning from, has been social innovations director for the . The organization aims to represent the 2.2 million people who work as nannies, housekeepers and caregivers in the U.S.

When she was hired, innovation labs were just starting to gain a foothold among social justice organizations. As the future of work began to be tied intrinsically to the growth of the internet, Shah said the group鈥檚 innovation strategy work has been focused on how technology could help, rather than displace, its constituents.

Among the results, Shah said, are a series of ventures with tech companies like , Care.com, Airbnb and others that allow domestic workers to earn a living wage, to earn paid time off and to meet on a regular basis with employers to discuss mutual concerns.

鈥淚nnovation in our movement is actually inventing something that allows us to make progress for workers in their jobs in places where we don鈥檛 have all the traditional legislative tools that we normally use,鈥� Shah said.

鈥淚鈥檓 very influenced by the idea of applying the scientific method to solution-making, and that鈥檚 what I told the 蜜桃传媒,鈥� Shah said. 鈥淭ake the Silicon Valley lean startup model,鈥� an approach to building new businesses based on the belief that entrepreneurs must investigate, experiment, test and iterate as they develop products, 鈥渁nd merge it with what social movements are all about to create our own approach to solving problems.鈥�

is CEO of , a nonprofit that invests millions of dollars in cutting-edge efforts to improve the lives of workers. He joined one of the 蜜桃传媒鈥檚 learning workshops to share details about the nonprofit鈥檚 innovation strategy.

Over the past few years, The Workers Lab has invested in, among other projects, , which works with employers across the country to ensure workers have access to emergency cash as part of their benefits package; , a collective of app-based food delivery drivers in New York City advocating for better working conditions; and the , which advocates for green products and water conservation to increase safety standards for car wash workers in Los Angeles.

鈥淭his work of innovation is not for the faint of heart, it鈥檚 a scary, scary place to be,鈥� Haro said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really admirable and really promising for an organization like the 蜜桃传媒 with such a tremendous track record already to commit to jumping in and asking the hard questions.鈥�

New tactics

The idea of such innovation has been a staple of the tech world and other fast-progressing industries for decades. But the association of innovation with the corporate world is a double-edged sword. The term has met resistance from some social justice advocates.

鈥淚 remember the early times when we were trying to teach design thinking in innovation, there was just a tremendous amount of pushback of like, this is corporate, this is not us, this is not who we are, these are not our communities,鈥� said a professor of professional practice in management at the New School鈥檚 Milano School in New York City. Jesudason has a long history as an organizer and is one of the innovation experts the 蜜桃传媒 included in learning workshops.

鈥淭hen, we started reframing innovation as the legacy work of historically oppressed people,鈥� Jesudason said. 鈥淲e have always innovated to push back on the status quo and systems of oppression, and so innovation is in that legacy.鈥�

Innovation, Jesudason said, is just shorthand for doing different things 鈥� and doing things differently.

鈥淚 prefer the term radical imagination,鈥� Aisha Nyandoro said during one of the 蜜桃传媒鈥檚 workshops. Nyandoro is the CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, which uses a resident-driven approach to end generational poverty. She created the , now the country鈥檚 longest-running guaranteed basic income program for Black women.

Jesudason tells a simple story to explain what innovation means to her. Years ago, when she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, she was taking part in a series of protests against the World Trade Organization, which was holding meetings there.

Central to protesters鈥� strategy, she said, was sitting in the middle of an intersection to block traffic. But the police would inevitably come to dislodge the protesters, and by the time they made it out of police custody, the day was done, and so was their ability to protest further until the next.

鈥淎nd then a group of people on bicycles figured out that if they rode their bicycles in a circle in the intersection, they could block traffic,鈥� Jesudason said. 鈥淎nd when the cops arrived, they would just cycle off to another intersection. So seven people could block six or seven intersections in a day, instead of just one.鈥�

Take that sort of out-of-the box thinking, Jesudason said, and move it from the simple question of peaceful protest tactics to the fundamental questions of our time, questions like voter suppression and criminal justice reform. That is innovation.

Start with a question or problem. Talk to the people who are impacted. Try to understand their points of view. Generate a bunch of different ideas for how to solve it. Prioritize and test those ideas and, Jesudason said, 鈥渏ust create as many spaces as possible for people to try different tactics out.鈥�

Image at top: The 蜜桃传媒 is convening a design workshop of artists, educators, youth leaders, organizers and faith leaders to generate concepts for supporting social justice innovation. (Illustration by Laura Salafia)