Overview
Social innovation relates to 'innovative activities and services that are motivated by the goal of meeting a social need and that are predominantly developed and diffused through organisations whose primary purposes are social'. examples include...
Fair trade - pioneered in the UK and USA in the 1940s-80s and now growing globally.
Greenpeace - and the many movements of ecological direct action which drew on much older Quaker ideas and which have transformed how citizens can engage directly in social change.
Amnesty International - and the growth of human rights.
Oxfam (originally the Oxford Committee for Relief of Famine) and the spread of humanitarian relief.
The Women's Institute (founded in Canada in the 1890s) - and the innumerable women's organisations and innovations which have made feminism mainstream.