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Small Actions Matter

Letter from the Director

Welcome to the first installment of Multisolving Institute Director Beth Sawin’s monthly letter! While the content and topics will vary, each month Beth will write a short reflection on something in the news, an insight from a project, or an appreciation of a multisolving leader in our network. Longer than a tweet, shorter than an op-ed, we hope these letters will give you something to think about, ideas to apply in your own work, or just a few moments to reflect in your busy day.

“We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.”  - Grace Lee Boggs

Wars. Displaced people. Floods in Australia and a drought-driven food crisis in the Horn of Africa. A new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change saying the window to protect a “livable future for all” is closing fast. Another report, eight days later, from the International Energy Agency, documenting record high CO2 emissions – a trend in the opposite direction to the IPCC’s cry of alarm.

Taken together, it’s enough to be overwhelming in the best of times, before adding a global pandemic to the mix. 
 
Are there are days when you question if your small efforts matter in the face of all of this?
 
This month, my friend, MIT Professor John Sterman, shared an article that reminded me of how much our small actions, sometimes, do matter. 

The article featured the research of Professor David Hsu, who studies energy policy. Hsu traced the origins of an energy policy known as Community Choice Aggregation, which allows community members to act as a bloc to buy energy from renewable sources. Today, thirty-six million people in the US get their energy via Community Choice Aggregation. 

Professor Hsu’s research traced the origin of the policy back to a handful of individuals working in Massachusetts in the late 1990s. The group included a leader at an energy efficiency non-profit, a journalist, a municipal official, and a staffer in the office of a state senator. Through multiple setbacks these innovators created the progenitor of today’s Community Choice Aggregation. Eventually, it became Massachusetts’ state policy. Then, as other states needed models to connect residents with clean energy, their prototype spread.
 
A few things stand out for me about this story, especially because they remind me of qualities we see in successful multisolving projects.

Working across boundaries. Though their actions were small and local, those four leaders spanned sectors. When a diversity of views and roles are brought together, insight and transformative power can arise. Four people are a not a lot, but four people with different knowledge and networks can be a force for change.

Getting started even if the “moment of opportunity” isn’t clear yet. Multisolvers know that there’s not enough time to connect across sectors once an opportunity arises – you must be ready for it in advance. Hsu describes such a moment of opportunity Massachusetts, a moment when the governor and the legislature were seeking a compromise on clean energy. The work of the small group was ready, there to draw upon in that moment.
 
Trusting that in complex systems small seeds can scale and spread. Reinforcing feedback loops can take new ideas and solutions and grow them exponentially. That’s how an idea generated by four people now shows up in the lives of thirty-six million. The four folks from Massachusetts didn’t have to put constant energy into diffusion. Their innovation filled a widespread need, and because systems are self-similar, an innovation in one place could fit in many others. Make your small innovations useful, make them known, and trust reinforcing feedback to carry them forth, if the time is right.

Of course, not every seed grows to a huge size. Your small project might be the one that lands on fertile ground and scales to reach the whole country. Or it might stay small, helping one plot of land, one group of children, or one city block. 
 
One thing is sure. The efforts that never start, because they seemed too small to be worth it, are guaranteed to not make a difference.

Thanks for reading, take care of each other, and tend your small seeds!

Sincerely,

Beth Sawin
Director, Multisolving Institute

This newsletter is a part of our series, Letters From the Director, monthly short reflections on multisolving and multisolvers.

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