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Marriott School of Business

The Social Impact Cycle

The Social Impact Cycle is a framework to help individuals and organizations create lasting positive change in a systematic way. At the heart of the cycle is the principle of Loving the One. Just as our faith shows us that Jesus Christ cares about each individual, we choose to start solving social problems at the personal level.

The model breaks social impact work into four essential phases that can overlap and strengthen each other: Love the Problem, Design the Change, Implement, and Evaluate. The three rings of the cycle correspond with three scales of impact: the levels of the individual, community, and world.

Full Social IMpact Cycle.png

Curious about how the cycle works? Explore the phases below!

Love the Problem

Engage in deep research to more fully understand the problem and those affected by it. Interview potential co-creators and connect with organizations that are already focusing on the issue to learn from their best practices.

Design the Change

Properly scope the problem and apply human-centered design principles to develop your theory of change. Create rapid prototypes to test and validate your hypotheses and find viable solutions.

Implement

Build your proposed solution into an intervention. Launch your proposed idea, or pitch to connect and collaborate with organizations already working on the same issue.

Evaluate

Measure the results of your intervention to see if it helped alleviate the negative consequences of the issue. Analyze and evaluate the results, and use your findings to iterate and improve.