Do Good. Better. Guidebook Chapter 4: The Social Impact Cycle

Chapter 4: The Social Impact Cycle

When you are done with this section, you will be able to...

Explain the purpose and structure of the Social Impact Cycle, including its four phases.
Describe what it means to love the one and why it is essential to social impact work.
Describe how the Social Impact Cycle is iterative rather than linear.
Explain the three rings of scale and what role they play in the Social Impact Cycle.

INTRODUCTION

Creating meaningful social change doesn’t happen by accident. It requires purposeful strategy and a deep understanding of the people experiencing the problem. Across sectors and disciplines, practitioners have developed frameworks and methodologies to help individuals and organizations better understand complex social problems and design effective solutions.

These frameworks provide structure for navigating uncertainty, coordinating action, and learning from both success and failure. Many social impact models exist today, and while they may differ in language, emphasis, and application, they share a common goal: to help changemakers act more intentionally, ethically, and effectively in their social impact efforts.

This chapter introduces one such model, the Social Impact Cycle, as a guiding framework for understanding and addressing social problems. The cycle provides a shared language and structure for social impact work while remaining flexible enough to adapt across sectors, cultures, and contexts. Whether you are working in a nonprofit, business, government, or personal capacity, the Social Impact Cycle offers a practical format to move from good intentions to valuable action.

WHAT IS THE SOCIAL IMPACT CYCLE?

The Social Impact Cycle is a practical framework developed by the Melvin J. Ballard Center for Social Impact, located within the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University, to help individuals and organizations create lasting, positive change. Its strategy has been continuously refined and improved through years of application and applied feedback from practitioners in the field. As a result, this cycle constitutes a robust, evidence-based approach to social innovation that has proven effective across diverse contexts and scales, with further iterations to come.

The framework breaks social impact work into four essential phases: love the problem, design the change, implement the intervention, and evaluate the outcomes. Underlying each phase is the principle of love the one—a commitment to center the people most affected by the issue at every stage of the process. These four areas of focus help changemakers as they build and maintain their foundational understanding of the problem and guide their work toward legitimate, sustainable solutions. By nature, the cycle creates a continuous journey where each phase is revisited with new knowledge and experience rather than acting as a one-time linear process. The Social Impact Cycle further supports the scaling of social impact interventions, beginning with the individual, then expanding to the community, and hopefully the world.

WHAT IS THE CENTER OF THE SOCIAL IMPACT CYCLE?

At the heart of the Social Impact Cycle is the concept of loving the one, a constant reminder that, even as you seek broader systemic change, your work must remain grounded in caring for the individual. Loving the one emphasizes the importance of focusing on real people and lived experiences, rather than reducing complex realities to abstract problems. Individuals are the experts of their own circumstances, and honoring their expertise requires humility. Their voices, experiences, and insights should guide the work at every stage. Because this mindset is essential to creating lasting change, it serves as a guiding principle for every phase of the Social Impact Cycle.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE THE PROBLEM?

The Social Impact Cycle begins with learning to love the problem. This foundational phase emphasizes the importance of thoroughly understanding the social issue you want to address rather than jumping straight to potential solutions. It encourages you to invest time in researching the problem, along with who or what it affects, the contributing factors, and its negative consequences. Loving the problem (and the one) includes learning how a specific social issue affects people on a personal level and then utilizing those insights to better approach the problem. If the various pieces of a social issue are not well understood, and a quick, lower-effort solution is implemented, the result is often ineffective or short-term outcomes. Because the goal is to create enduring change, loving the problem is the best place to start.

The idea of “loving” a problem rather than a solution was popularized by Uri Levine, co-founder of Waze, in his book Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, where he emphasizes that innovation stems from deeply understanding a problem faced by people, not by getting attached to a specific solution or product.¹ It has further been adopted and embraced by many individuals and organizations within the social impact sphere.² The Ballard Center has implemented this mindset as part of its effort to advance research-backed solutions and foster mindfulness in social impact work.

Objective: Thoroughly research a chosen social issue using primary and secondary research methods. Learn about the previous and current efforts to solve the problem, speak with those experiencing the issue, and find the root causes.

Key Activities to Love the Problem:

Interview stakeholders and those experiencing the problem to learn from their first-hand accounts.
Connect with organizations already working on the issue. Study their successes, failures, and what lessons they’ve learned.
Scope the issue by defining precisely what problem you want to address and why. This includes determining the issue itself, who is affected by it, and where it is occurring.
Map the issue by identifying the negative consequences and contributing factors connected to your scoped issue. Determine which factors are the most prominent and visually map out their connection to the issue.
Understand context by researching how cultural settings, historical influences, and other relevant factors might affect the environment you will be working in.
Cultivate compassion and gather insight from those you hope to help, to ensure any solution you design is grounded in real needs and perspectives.

Move on to the next phase in the cycle when you have a solid understanding of the problem, validated by those experiencing it. This means you can clearly articulate the contributing factors and negative consequences of the social issue, describe the ecosystem of organizations and resources already addressing the issue, and identify gaps in current solutions. Throughout the research process, building relationships with individuals affected by the problem and participating in primary research can play a pivotal role in identifying potential solution gaps and expanding your understanding of the problem. The proper execution of this phase lays the groundwork for success later in the cycle and increases your ability to prevent costly mistakes.

Example Organization: Partners In Health (PIH)

Partners In Health, with their approach to healthcare in Haiti, is a great example of loving the problem. Before implementing healthcare interventions, Dr. Paul Farmer and his colleagues spent years living in rural Haitian communities, learning about the interconnected challenges of poverty, lack of infrastructure, and disease. They listened to community members regarding barriers to care and discovered two concealed problems contributing to the social issue. Patients in Haiti often couldn’t afford the bus fare to reach clinics and sometimes lacked the necessary food to take medications safely. This new insight led PIH to develop a comprehensive model that addresses not just medical treatment but also transportation, nutrition, and social support. Their philosophy reflects a commitment to understanding problems from the perspective of those experiencing them and offering aid by walking alongside the patient, rather than behind or in front of them.³

Read more about Partners In Health at: https://www.pih.org/

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO DESIGN THE CHANGE?

After loving the problem, the next step in the Social Impact Cycle is to design the change. This phase includes a wide range of activities, including brainstorming potential solutions, co-creating interventions, drafting and revising strategy, and building, testing, and refining prototypes. These various steps are all part of developing interventions that are effective, practical, and human-centered. The goal is to create an intervention with the highest likelihood of success based on the research conducted in the first phase. It discourages moving forward with a solution simply because of convenience or a desire to act.

Designing the change, like the other phases in the social impact cycle, begins with loving the one. Based on the experiences of your co-creators, you can work together to design a realistic solution. The interventions discussed may be a product of existing best practices and research, or stem from new insights gained in the first phase of the Social Impact Cycle. Designing the change consists of small-scale, iterative tests paired with evaluation to determine the effectiveness of a potential solution. It starts with a detailed plan of how to test the prototype and collect, measure, and analyze data. Once the groundwork is laid, a small-scale solution is tested. This testing is distinct from large-scale implementation, which is addressed in the next phase of the cycle. After the testing period, an evaluation plan is carried out to process the data collected. This phase is revisited throughout the development of a social impact plan.

Objective: Based on previously gathered information, design a possible solution grounded in real needs and real people. Plan and set goals for success and how success will be measured.

Key Activities to Design the Change:

Co-create interventions by partnering with affected communities to develop programs, products, or policies that genuinely address their needs.
Set outcome goals to help define what success looks like with clear, measurable targets.
Map your logic model by charting the connections between your activities, outputs, outcomes, and ultimate impact.
Design for people by centering your solution around how people actually think, behave, and live.
Incorporate behavior change principles by identifying which behaviors must shift and designing interventions that realistically facilitate those changes.
Test through prototypes because low-stakes versions of your solution will help you gather real feedback before committing significant resources.
Plan for evaluation and determine early what data you'll need and how you'll collect it. Don't wait until implementation to think about measurement.

Move on to the next phase in the cycle when prototyping and testing have validated your solution, stakeholders have confirmed its feasibility and relevance, and a clear theory of change explains how your intervention will create the desired impact.

Example Organization: IDEO.org

IDEO.org demonstrates exceptional design thinking in their work on financial inclusion. When addressing the challenge of savings among low-income communities in Kenya, they didn't begin with preconceived banking solutions. Instead, they conducted extensive research revealing that many people were already saving through informal methods—hiding money in mattresses or with trusted shopkeepers. Using this insight, IDEO.org co-designed with M-PESA to create mobile savings features that felt familiar and trustworthy while adding security and accessibility. Their human-centered design process included rapid prototyping, user testing, and continuous iteration with community members. The result was an accessible solution rooted in existing behaviors rather than one imposed from the outside.

Learn more at IDEO.org

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO IMPLEMENT?

Implementing the intervention is the third stage of the Social Impact Cycle and includes the necessary steps to put a previously designed intervention into practice. Implementation transforms ideas into reality through an appropriately scaled iteration of your planned intervention. This phase is about executing your solution in the real world while building the organizational capacity and infrastructure needed for success.

Effective implementation requires project management skills, clear communication, and the wisdom to know when to stick to your pre-determined intervention plan and when to pivot. Knowing when to adjust and when to continue starts with utilizing a staged implementation plan and monitoring the immediate effects of your efforts. If your activities are not leading to the outputs and immediate outcomes you expected, that is a signal to pause and determine why before continuing.

Objective: Implement and test an appropriately scaled iteration of the planned solution or intervention. Start with a scope that allows you to learn effectively without overextending resources or risking harm.

Key Activities to Implementing:

Build capacity by training staff and volunteers in the skills necessary for implementation. This should occur both within your team and your partner organizations.
Secure funding and establish a legal structure by obtaining the necessary financial resources and formalizing your organizational status (nonprofit registration, partnership agreements, etc.)
Determine management and operations to ensure effective coordination of logistics, communications, finances, and people.
Build an infrastructure by establishing the systems, processes, and physical resources needed to deliver your intervention.
Develop partnerships by collaborating with organizations, government agencies, and community groups that can strengthen your implementation.
Adapt in real time by remaining flexible and adjusting your approach based on what you learn during execution.

Move on to the next phase in the cycle when your intervention has been operating long enough to generate measurable results, in other words, when outcomes emerge that can be analyzed.

Example Organization: Last Mile Health

Last Mile Health excels at implementation, particularly in training and deploying community health workers in remote areas of Liberia and other countries. After designing their community health worker model, they developed comprehensive capacity-building programs, secured funding from multiple sources, and established partnerships with the Liberian Ministry of Health. They created management systems for supervision, built supply chain infrastructure for medication delivery, and developed legal frameworks for their operations.

During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, their implementation capacity allowed them to rapidly mobilize trained community health workers. They established clear protocols, ensured workers had the necessary supplies and protective equipment, and maintained communication channels even in isolated communities. Their implementation was largely successful because of their attention to operational details—ranging from curriculum development to medication delivery schedules—along with the flexibility to adapt when challenges arose. Once they observed positive health outcomes in their communities, they moved to rigorous evaluation to measure impact and inform scaling decisions.

Read more about Last Mile Health at https://lastmilehealth.org/

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO EVALUATE?

After implementation, the fourth phase of the Social Impact Cycle invites you to evaluate your outcomes. In this phase, evaluation shifts away from anecdotal success stories and pursues clear, measurable outputs (what and how much you do), outcomes (changes in your social issue), and impact (the portion of the outcomes directly brought by your intervention). These targeted measurements provide a systematic tool for analyzing where the implementation is succeeding and where it is falling short. This data should inform your decisions to adjust, scale, continue, or conclude your intervention. Without intentional and rigorous evaluation, you risk continuing ineffective programs or missing valuable opportunities to scale successful ones. The evaluation process, while an effective means to improve your intervention, also ensures accountability to those you serve and those funding or supporting your efforts.

Though evaluation is represented as the “final phase” of the Social Impact Cycle, measurements, analysis, and adjustments should occur throughout all stages of the cycle whenever appropriate. However, a formalized evaluation should always follow the implementation or improvement of an intervention to verify that intended outcomes are achieved and meaningful improvements are being made. The insights gained in the evaluation phase function as a catalyst for the next rotation of the Social Impact Cycle.

Objective: Evaluate the solution according to the targeted outcomes to determine the level of success. This means assessing whether your intervention achieved the intended goal and understanding the reasons why it did or did not.

Key Activities:

Collect and analyze data by systematically gathering quantitative and qualitative data related to your intervention's performance.
Assess results by measuring and reviewing outputs, outcomes, and impact.
Learn and iterate by using findings to refine your approach, scale up successful solutions, or pivot if needed.
Share insights with stakeholders and the broader field to contribute to collective learning.

Move on to scaling your impact when you have definitive results. This occurs when you have sufficient data and analysis to make informed decisions about continuing, adjusting, scaling, or concluding your intervention.

Example Organization: BRAC

BRAC (formerly Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), one of the world's largest NGOs, has built evaluation into its organizational DNA. Its Independent Evaluation and Research Cell (IERC) rigorously studies the effectiveness of BRAC programs across its diverse interventions. This includes BRAC’s graduation program, designed to help individuals in extreme poverty build sustainable livelihoods. To evaluate the graduation program’s effectiveness, it moved beyond anecdotal success stories and conducted randomized controlled trials across multiple countries. These trials established a clear measurement of outputs (number of participants trained), outcomes (income increases, asset acquisition), and impact (long-term poverty reduction). When evaluation revealed certain program components were less effective, BRAC adjusted its model. When results showed strong outcomes, it used the evidence to scale up its program to new regions and influence policy. BRAC's commitment to evaluation and continuous improvement has expanded its ability to generate positive change.

Learn more about BRAC at https://www.bracusa.org/

HOW CAN I SCALE MY IMPACT?

The Social Impact Cycle graphic not only features the four phases of the cycle but also the three scales of impact. The concentric rings illustrate how social impact work can deepen, expand, and multiply over time. Each ring represents both a level of scale and a distinct approach to scaling social impact.

Individual Level — Scaling by Depth: The center ring focuses on small-scale change in the lives of individuals: one person, one family, one school. This is where meaningful relationships are built, and interventions are proved successful. At this level, scaling happens through depth—improving the quality or variety of services available for the people you are already serving—with the intent to increase overall impact. Rather than reaching more people, you focus on the needs of the individual, addressing additional contributing factors or negative consequences of the issue. Every large-scale movement starts here, by improving the life of an individual.
Community Level — Scaling by Reach: Once an intervention has proven impactful at the individual level, it can move to the second ring and expand to serve a broader group within the same population or context. This might look like increasing outreach from one person to 100 people, from a family to a neighborhood, or from one school to an entire school district. At this level, scaling occurs through reach—extending a proven model to more people who face the same problem in the same area. While personal connection becomes less individualized, the applied intervention is still rooted in a love for the one, and relationships, patterns, and community dynamics remain visible. This allows you to maintain quality while increasing the number of people benefiting from your work.
World Level — Scaling by Replication: After successful implementation at both the individual and community levels, you can scale your intervention to further global or systemic change. This is where proven solutions are customized and implemented in new locations and among new demographics, be that regional, national, or global. This scale may involve influencing policy, inspiring other organizations, or becoming a model others adopt. However, replication does not mean copying a solution without adjustment. Thoughtful adaptation must still take place as you implement your intervention into new cultural, economic, and institutional contexts. It is also important to note that not every intervention needs to be scaled at this level. The outer ring is meant to highlight the potential for proven solutions to contribute to systemic and global change.

These rings are not meant to act as strict boundaries, but rather as a visual reminder to consider how you might scale your solution as you move through the Social Impact Cycle. Consider asking questions like: “If this solution works, how could we help ten more people? A hundred? A thousand?” The goal is to design and implement solutions that remain true to the needs of the individual and can grow while maintaining their efficacy.

HOW IS THE SOCIAL IMPACT CYCLE USEFUL?

Following the Social Impact Cycle offers several critical advantages for changemakers. The cycle:

Prevents common mistakes. By starting with a deep understanding of the issue, you can avoid rushing into solutions that don't fit the problem or meet real needs.
Promotes compassion and co-creation. The cycle encourages working with, not just for, those affected. This co-creation helps build more effective and dignified solutions.
Supports continuous improvement. The recurring cycle and iterative evaluation facilitate learning and encourage frequent adjustments to make interventions more effective over time.
Provides a shared language. The framework offers common terminology and processes for teams, organizations, and ecosystems working on social change.
Encourages strategic scaling. The graphic’s concentric rings act as a reminder of how proven solutions can grow from individual to community to global impact.

The framework acknowledges that social change is complex and rarely linear. Real-world social impact work is messy. You might discover during implementation that you need to do more research on the problem’s contributing factors, or evaluation might reveal that your theory of change was flawed. This isn’t failure; it's learning. The cycle embraces this reality, providing structure while allowing flexibility.

The simplicity and adaptability of the Social Impact Cycle make it useful across sectors, cultures, and settings. It could be applied by a nonprofit addressing childhood malnutrition, a politician trying to craft an effective campaign, a business looking to improve daily operations, or an individual working on a personal project. The Social Impact Cycle is a valuable asset in any context where change is the end goal.

WHAT DOES THE SOCIAL IMPACT CYCLE LOOK LIKE IN PRACTICE?

These benefits are not theoretical, but rather grounded in real-world practice. Many prominent organizations naturally apply the principles of the Social Impact Cycle in their work because the framework is built on widely accepted best practices in the social impact field. The following example illustrates how a real-world SPSO has effectively applied the Social Impact Cycle to address a social problem.

The Cycle in Practice: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The Gates Foundation's evolution in its global health efforts is a prime example of how organizations cycle through the four phases of the Social Impact Cycle repeatedly. Early on in their work to eradicate malaria, they invested heavily in understanding the problem—funding research on disease transmission, mosquito behavior, and community practices. This informed their design of multi-pronged interventions combining bed nets, new treatments, and indoor spraying. During implementation, they partnered with governments and local organizations to distribute millions of bed nets and increase treatment access. Crucially, they evaluated outcomes by tracking malaria incidence and mortality rates. When data showed certain strategies were more cost-effective than others, they adjusted their funding priorities. They returned to the start of the cycle with new research questions focused on drug resistance and vaccine development. Thereby beginning the cycle anew, but this time with greater insight and experience.

SUMMARY

The Social Impact Cycle is a powerful tool to Do Good. Better. By moving thoughtfully through its four phases—love the problem, design the change, implement the intervention, and evaluate the outcomes—you can create social change that is human-centric, effective, and sustainable. The cycle’s underlying invitation to love the one serves as a reminder that change starts one person at a time. Though the cycle won't make social impact work easy, it will make your efforts more intentional and increase your likelihood of success.

Remember, the cycle is not a one-time process to complete and check off your list. It's a continuous journey of learning and adjusting. Each iteration builds on the insights of the previous one. When assessed as a whole, the cycle’s core principle, four phases, and three rings of impact, combine to address the questions: who, how, and at what scale. Whether you're launching your first social venture or leading an established organization, the Social Impact Cycle can guide you toward greater impact.

As you begin your own social impact work, commit to embracing each phase of the cycle fully. Take time to love the problem deeply before rushing to design solutions. Design thoughtfully and collaboratively before moving to implementation. Implement with both excellence and flexibility, as you build your capacity and nurture the partnerships needed for success. Evaluate rigorously, shifting from anecdotes to clear evidence, and learn from the data collected. Then return to the beginning of the cycle, armed with new knowledge, refined understanding, and a renewed commitment to creating meaningful, sustainable change.

ENDNOTES

1 - Levine, U. (2023). Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution. Matt Holt Books.
2 - Rohrbaugh, S. (2025). “Building ideation and innovation into your development process.” Harmony Venture Labs Blog.
3 - Behforouz, H. (2009, October 14). “Accompaniment could be the key to reforming and transforming health care.” Partners In Health.

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