Sense-Lab and the Institute of Corporate Citizenship (ICE) are long-time partners. Working together began a few years ago – since 2016, when we were invited to participate in the Innovation Labs of the Social Investment Task Force (currently the Alliance for Impact Investments and Businesses), support Accelerators & Incubators through mentoring, develop acceleration programs EAD, develop guides such as “Innovation in Impact Business Models”, “Opportunities for large companies: rethinking the way of doing business and solving social problems”, and co-construct the “Model C”.
But it was in 2020 that ICE discovered one of the pillars that Sense-Lab has been exploring and specializing in – organizational planning and development based on dialogical processes. So, the invitation came to carry out the organization's strategic planning for the next five years. The request also included a Theory of Change and an action plan for 2021.
Context
In 22 years of operation, ICE has been promoting solutions that generate positive, lasting and far-reaching social impact. In 2012, the organization chose to work with the theme of impact investments and businesses for a seven-year cycle, but, in 2019, revisiting the choice made, ICE understood that it still has relevant contributions to make in this field and, therefore, opted for continuity in this agenda until 2025.
Therefore, the challenge was to promote an experience that would enable the co-construction of a Theory of Change based on effective demands from the ecosystem, with innovative interventions with high potential for transformation in the field of business and impact investment, which can be led/supported by the ICE, taking into account the lessons learned and the power of its ongoing initiatives.
Challenge given, mission accomplished – the work lasted around four months and involved numerous virtual workshops with the ICE team and, more than that, an exploratory, reflective and thorough listening process to understand the organization's journey to date, the current context and ambitions for the future.
To ensure representation in the ICE strategic planning process, governance was established that included a project team that went through all phases with Sense-Lab, a validating group and an advisory group.
Methodology
Sense-Lab understands that the way to approach the strategic planning of organizations increasingly immersed in dynamic and complex environments is through dialogic processes. This happens by incorporating the perspective and experience of the parties involved, where each step informs and transforms the subsequent step. It is necessary to keep in mind that this is not a linear process and of few voices.
The methodology applied by Sense-Lab is based on the work of Dr. Glenda Eoyang, known as Adaptive Action, serves as a common thread for implementing initiatives in organizations. It starts from collecting and interpreting information to propose actions focused on achieving objectives and goes through 6 stages – initiation, exploration, interpretation, visualization, iteration and evolution.
We started with a divergent phase, analyzing pre-existing documents and history and collecting data, narratives, points of view from different actors (internal and external), through individual and group interviews. In total, there were 24 interviewees including ICE staff, associates and counselors. The next step was to generate a collective interpretation of the information obtained, paying attention to what was emerging, identifying patterns, possibilities and boundaries of the process. In this way, it was possible to enter a convergence stage, co-constructing and iterating the planning and Theory of Change with relevant audiences.
Results
It was a journey of a lot of deconstruction and joint construction, where project teams had to recognize achievements and, at the same time, practice detachment in favor of the vision that ICE was building for 2021-2025. Many conversations were generated, consensus was reached and,step by step, the design of ICE's new theory of change began to take shape.
The Institute of Corporate Citizenship reached the end of 2020 with a consistent Theory of Change validated in the Assembly, which will guide the organization's next steps and activities until 2025, focusing on the vision of transformation they want to achieve:
“The impact investment and business ecosystem is consolidated by generating innovative solutions to overcome Brazil's main social and environmental issues, contributing to the SDGs, attracting new capital and serving as a reference and inspiration for an economy that puts impact at the center of all decisions.”
But the work didn't stop there. In 2021, Sense-Lab also developed the tactical plans for the programs carried out by ICE, helping with the next steps to be taken by the respective teams. A partnership that began back in 2016, with paths that constantly cross and no end date.
Theory of Change
