PAPER | The Innovation Ambition Continuum

This resource is also available in French. Click here to access the French version.

The ability of those eager to make progress on the world’s most pressing challenges – climate change, economic inequities, racism - depends on their ability to innovate, change systems and transform the deeper worldviews that help keep stubborn problems in place.

Change-makers are often hampered in their efforts by differences of opinion – even outright confusion – over these three terms: what they mean; how they relate to each other; and the implications they hold for the practice of change-making.

The Three Ambitions Continuum is a mash-up of some of the most popular change-oriented frameworks floating around the field that aims to provide one way that social innovators can make sense of it all.

Note: This document was published in 2021 and uses the word stakeholder to reference the different parties connected to the outcomes of a situation or decision.

Since using the term, we as an organization have learned more about the origins of this word and its original uses. We want to acknowledge this history and communicate our desire to change which we are still developing as an organization.