Some insights on social innovation: from practice to theory

The world's social problems are so complex and so diverse that there will never be a "one size fits all" model for social innovation. The very nature of social innovation as a new, better way of solving social problems means that it is not even in the interest of social innovation advocates to create tidy definitions or frameworks, but rather to create environments that allow for the process of creative destruction with a social purpose to prosper. The value of our variables is that they help define those environments. Some of the questions they help to answer are: is there a strategy for long-term financial viability in place? What type of innovation model is being adopted? What is the relationship between different sectors and is there sufficient freedom to scale up the innovation?