Inspiring Mission as a lifestyle.

At the Grove we are seeing a community that co-creates together to help find solutions to social problems. A description of this kind of Community is borrowed from the term ‘social mission sector’ – an umbrella term used to describe the individuals and organizations whose primary mission is to produce some benefit for people and planet.

 

Together our emerging community works to incubate ideas and steward the dreams of people. This work results often in finding innovative ways to make good on their ideas, we call this ”social innovation”.  We define social innovation to mean: A novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals. To this end we are helping to grow a movement in our urban city.

 

The social value created through social innovation often produces a benefit or a reduction of costs for society. A social innovation can be a product, production process, or technology (much like innovation in general), but it can also be a principle, an idea, a piece of legislation, a social movement, an intervention, or some combination of them. Indeed, many of the best recognized social innovations, such as micro-finance, are a combination of a number of these elements.

 

In New Haven we are cultivating the ‘social mission sector’ our social mission community includes individuals, nonprofits, for-profits, entrepreneurs and individuals working for change. At the Grove we believe it is possible with the help of our growing community to inspire a social mission movement in our city. Leveraging the knowledge we share we are working on environmental sustainability projects, food security and urban farming projects, initiatives that impact youth in our city, inspire educational reform, and economic development with innovation and business start-ups.