Open Society Foundations
Using design and systems thinking to advance legal empowerment
An innovation handbook for Legal Empowerment teams
Legal Empowerment is one of the most complex and multi-faceted fields in the social impact arena. Legal Empowerment teams around the world work tirelessly to ensure that underserved communities know their rights, are in a position to use the law and to ideally effect positive change in legislation. They will help those communities fight illegal evictions, battle exploitative employers, or stand up for the rights of sex workers or HIV patients.
This vital work is both deeply human-centered and systemic at the same time. Teams doing this work can greatly benefit from tools that help them address such multifaceted challenges.
For this reason, Open Society Foundations’ ‘Legal Empowerment’ group and Daylight teamed up to jointly conceptualize, write and design an innovation handbook specifically for Legal Empowerment teams that provides both human-centered and systems thinking tools, processes and mindsets.
Fusing Systems Thinking and Design Thinking for best results
The methodology laid out in the handbook is tailored to social impact challenges. It reflects both the need to proceed in a way that is highly participatory and based on human needs, as well as the systemic approach needed to bridge the gap between one-off successes and overall legislative progress.
This handbook marries two innovation approaches and fuses them into one, bringing together Systems Thinking and Participatory Design (a version of Design Thinking particularly suitable for social impact work).
Prior to our rebrand work, the San Francisco Health Network's messaging placed emphasis on the providers and the system. The Network described itself as the City’s “only complete system of care.” The Network logo was an icon of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Through our work, we wanted to shift focus from describing the system to communicating the value added for the patient. We sought to:
- Publicly reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to accessible health care for all of its residents, regardless of immigration status or insurance;
- Create a unifying brand that resonated deeply with patients and staff; and
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
A book that is powerful, beautiful and free to download
OSF’s Matthew Burnett and Daylight’s Pascal Soboll have teamed up to write a step-by-step guide, enabling teams to set up and facilitate Legal Empowerment projects in a way that not only involve, but put into the driver’s seat, members of the affected communities.
It also guides teams in zooming out to understand the challenge on a systemic level and then to dive into the details to ensure that they spend their efforts on the most effective points of leverage.
Real-world case studies from OSF’s vast repertoire of experience bring the material to life and illustrate how teams have successfully applied aspects of this methodology in the past.
Prior to our rebrand work, the San Francisco Health Network's messaging placed emphasis on the providers and the system. The Network described itself as the City’s “only complete system of care.” The Network logo was an icon of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Through our work, we wanted to shift focus from describing the system to communicating the value added for the patient. We sought to:
- Publicly reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to accessible health care for all of its residents, regardless of immigration status or insurance;
- Create a unifying brand that resonated deeply with patients and staff; and
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
Available to download from OSF
OSF has launched the digital book and made it available to download here. We recommend it to anyone interested in how to best tackle complex social impact innovation challenges.
Prior to our rebrand work, the San Francisco Health Network's messaging placed emphasis on the providers and the system. The Network described itself as the City’s “only complete system of care.” The Network logo was an icon of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Through our work, we wanted to shift focus from describing the system to communicating the value added for the patient. We sought to:
- Publicly reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to accessible health care for all of its residents, regardless of immigration status or insurance;
- Create a unifying brand that resonated deeply with patients and staff; and
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
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Prior to our rebrand work, the San Francisco Health Network's messaging placed emphasis on the providers and the system. The Network described itself as the City’s “only complete system of care.” The Network logo was an icon of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Through our work, we wanted to shift focus from describing the system to communicating the value added for the patient. We sought to:
- Publicly reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to accessible health care for all of its residents, regardless of immigration status or insurance;
- Create a unifying brand that resonated deeply with patients and staff; and
- Give staff desperately needed tools to clearly and consistently describe the Network, its values, and its services.
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