Articles & Books

The following are a selection of articles and books that we reference in our retreats:

Articles:

Breaking New Ground: Using the Internet to Scale: A Case History of Kaboom!, Monitor Institute, June 2010 - How an innovative non-profit put its business model and tools on-line and went from building 1,700 playgrounds in 15 years to empowering communities to build 6,000 playgrounds.

The Innovation Diffusion Game, Alan Atkisson, In Context, Spring 1991 - A fun way to explain the theory of how new ideas spread through a culture.

Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, Donella Meadows, Sustainability Institute, 1999 - The classic article on systems thinking and how this perspective can inform strategic choices for change.

Positive Deviant, David Dorsey, Fast Company, Nov. 30, 2000 - How a strategy of amplifying positive deviations from the norm helped reduce childhood malnutrition in Vietnamese villages by 65 - 85% in 2 years.

Strategic Questioning, Tom Atlee - A summary of Fran Peavey's techniques for using Strategic Questioning to advance change.

Thinking Out Loud About Social Entrepreneurs, Katherine Fulton, April 23, 2010, Monitor Institute blog post

Books:

Coming Back to Life, Joanna Macy & Molly Young Brown

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Clay Shirky

Leading Change Toward Sustainability: A Change Management Guide for Business, Government, and Civil Society, Bob Doppelt

Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities, Adam Kahane

Upsizing: The Road to Zero Emissions, More Jobs, More Income and No Pollution, Gunter Pauli

Click here for a list of favorite books of participants at New Directions Collaborative's November 2010 Women's Sustainability Leadership Retreat.