Start Empathy Report and Plan short

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Ashoka’s Start Empathy Initiative:

The Next FIVE Years

Presented by: Ashoka | www.ashoka.org | www.startempathy.org

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CONTENTS Ashoka’s vision is an

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Introduction

History in Action Achievements & Impact to Date The Next 5 Years

Everyone a Changemaker world.

“Being a changemaker for the good is very contagious because people deeply and centrally want to express love and respect in action. They want to be a player, a contributor.” Bill Drayton

Ashoka Founder and CEO

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WHY NOW Historic changes in technology and globalization have transformed traditional power structures in the world, opening the way for millions to participate in society in a way that they could not before. And change is accelerating. While we do not know what tomorrow’s problems are going to be, we know there will be many, and we know we will need everyone equipped to deal with them.

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A world of rapid change is a complex landscape to navigate. In the past, we had hierarchies in our societies and institutions that kept the world organized. Today we live in a more decentralized world. Institutions are flat, open, and highly networked. Knowledge is no longer enough. We all must be empathic changemakers, able to collaborate, create, and act constructively in ambiguous and changing environments.

CHANGEMAKER = an individual with the skillset and connection to purpose that enable him or her to generate ideas and take initiative to effectively solve problems and drive positive change.

INTRODUCTION

HISTORY IN ACTION

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Transforming the youth years Despite how the world is changing, only a handful of children are consistently provided with the learning environments and opportunities necessary to help them develop the skills they need to thrive. We must shift this pattern. We urgently must see young people as changemakers and help them develop the skills they need to be empathetic, ethical actors who will positively impact their own lives, their communities, their schools, their companies, their countries and the world, now and throughout their lives. Ashoka seeks to catalyze a global “framework change” to transform how society understands success in growing up. The fact that every parent and educator

today knows his or her child or student must be able to read to succeed is the result of a previous societal framework change around literacy—from the old paradigm of literacy of the elite to the new paradigm of literacy for all. Today, everyone knows that a child who doesn’t learn to read will get left behind. But now we face a new shift, from the old paradigm of education for repetitive function jobs in hierarchical environments, to the new paradigm of education for changemaking in fluid environments. To thrive in a world of rapid change, every child must grow up developing the essential skills of empathy, teamwork, leadership, and changemaking.

“The future of our economy, the strength of our democracy, and perhaps even the health of the planet’s ecosystems depend on educating future generations in ways very different from how many of us were schooled.” Tony Wagner

Expert in Residence Harvard´s Innovation Lab

How we got here Ashoka gains its insights from our global network of the world’s 3,000 best social entrepreneurs. While each selected Ashoka Fellow addresses a specific social problem, each also plays a much larger role. Every Ashoka Fellow is part of a larger “mosaic” of solutions that points toward a new paradigm for the field. Being at the center of this network, Ashoka develops a deep understanding of the key levers for structural social change. We see patterns that show where interventions are most needed in society and where fields are ripe for change.

Over the years, as our Fellowship grew, we spotted a consistent pattern: Fellows all over the world— regardless of culture, religion, or political system—seek to nurture changemakers and create the conditions for changemaking. In particular, over 700 Ashoka Fellows working with children and young people are largely advancing ideas that help young people develop the skills they need to be contributors in a rapidly changing world. Ashoka is aligning these Fellows and other key players to collaboratively accelerate this change on a large scale.

“If we have optimism, but we don’t have empathy – then it doesn’t matter how much we master the secrets of science, we’re not really solving problems; we’re just working on puzzles.” Bill and Melinda Gates

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EVERY CHILD MUST MASTER EMPATHY At the foundation of Ashoka’s efforts to create an Everyone a Changemaker world, and to transform the youth years in support of that vision, is the Start Empathy Initiative. Empathy is foundational to everyone’s ability to live successful, fulfilled lives as changemakers. We need everyone to be creative contributors to change, but to ensure change is positive, it is essential that this potential be rooted in awareness of self and others. In a world of rapid change, we increasingly find ourselves in situations where rules are changing, in conflict, or haven’t been created yet. To act in positive and constructive ways in this environment, we must rely

on empathy, the ability to understand the feelings and perspectives of others and to use that understanding to guide one’s actions in response. We must ensure that every child grows up fully developing his or her innate capacity for empathy. Ashoka’s Start Empathy Initiative is expanding and leveraging Ashoka’s network of social entrepreneurs and other changemakers to drive a movement to make empathy a priority skill for all children. We seek to accelerate society to a tipping point at which this idea becomes inevitable because a new framework has taken hold.

Theory of Change Our goal is a major societal shift, which is no small task, but we have a highly leveraged approach that we call a jiujitsu strategy: Jiujitsu emphasizes winning in combat by using your opponent´s weight and strength as weapons against him, while using the least of your own mental and physical energy. The key is sharp, determined focus and identifying the key points and moves that will turn even the biggest opponent around.

The key question then becomes: what are the least number of forces one must catalyze into interaction in order to generate a chemistry that is rapidly selfmultiplying and that progressively draws in yet more forces? We cannot reach every child ourselves, but by activating a carefully selected network of collaborators, we can set in motion an irreversible movement toward a future where everyone understands that empathy is as essential to a child’s success as literacy.

The Path to Tipping Society

the framework =

Change is accelerating in the world. To thrive as individuals and a society, everyone must be a changemaker, able to take initiative to positively contribute in a world of uncertain rules, fluid institutions, and constant change. Empathy is foundational to changemaking. Therefore, every child must master empathy.

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Cultivate a small, influential “triggering community” to lead the movement.

With this community, begin to catalyze contagion, driving uptake of the framework.

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We will ultimately measure our success by how widespread the idea that every child must master empathy becomes. In particular, we will look at the percentage of elementary school principals who make cultivating empathy at their schools a priority. This means not just that they think it’s a nice thing to do, but that they evaluate their success based on it.

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Ensure the movement is irreversible. This is the tipping point.

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Support multiplication as necessary, helping institutions meet demand for the new framework.

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Let’s look at it from the lens of the Diffusion of Innovations Theory: What the diffusion of innovations theory tells us is that if you want massmarket acceptance of an idea, you cannot have it until you achieve a tipping point around 16% market penetration, and then the system starts tipping.

Innovators 2.5%

Early Adopters 13.5%

Early Majority 34%

Late Majority 34%

Laggards 16%

Innovators 2.5%

Early Adopters 13.5%

Early Majority 34%

Late Majority 34%

Laggards 16%

This is where Ashoka focuses its energy and resources. The idea we want to disseminate is that empathy is as important as math and reading.

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This is why we approached our strategy in the first three years with very focused goals around the first stage of cultivating the triggering community: 1. Accelerate Social Entrepreneurs- 20 new Ashoka Empathy Fellows and 10 “co-creator” Fellows Ashoka Fellows are the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, innovating new system-changing solutions to the world’s most intractable problems. They are architects and engineers of the changes needed to help society adapt to the new framework. We must support the acceleration of their ideas and cultivate collaborative entrepreneurship among them toward a shared vision of the new framework for society. Individual ideas and organizations alone will not get us to framework change, but a shared vision across a group of leading social entrepreneurs will make their individual ideas even more powerful.

2. Activate Schools - 60 Ashoka Changemaker Schools Schools set educational culture and legitimize methods and standards of learning and success that, in turn, influence parents and others in children’s lives. Schools are community hubs that can engage parents and others necessary to ensuring that children master this skill. We have launched a network of Ashoka Changemaker Schools, which have been selected for their leadership in showing what education in the new framework looks like and for their desire and ability to help us lead this movement. We sought to find and engage 5% of the most influential elementary schools across the country, which would represent all the types, geographies, and demographics of schools in the U.S. We anticipated this being somewhere between 50-100 schools and selected 60 as our target for the first three years.

3. Change the Conversation - 30 media industry thought leaders (mavens) and communication and amplification strategies The job of thoughtful journalists, publishers, editors, and others in the media industry is to help people understand the world around them. They are, therefore, a key lever to change the public conversation. We have begun engaging individual mavens and maven companies who understand the framework and want to help their audiences do so as well. To reach all the key audiences in the U.S., we anticipated needing about 30 maven relationships. In addition to the maven relationships, communication and amplification strategies, including knowledge dissemination, media partnerships, and scalable marketing tools, have helped bring attention to the conversation.

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But our ultimate goal is broad, big and bold:

Every child Every parent Every teacher Every principal 13

Ashoka Fellows Over 30 years, Ashoka has built a network of over 3000 of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. We select Fellows based on the following criteria: 1) New idea - He or she has a new solution or approach to a social problem that will change the pattern in a field 2) Creativity - He or she is creative both as a goal-setting visionary and as a problem solver capable of engineering his or her vision into reality 3) Entrepreneurial Quality - He or she sees opportunities for change and innovation and devotes him or herself entirely to making that change happen 4) Social Impact - He or she has an idea that will change the field significantly and that will trigger at least nationwide impact 5) Ethical Fiber - He or she is completely trustworthy, and thus able to succeed at bringing others along to change their behavior or to see things in a new way

Ashoka Changemaker Schools

GLOSSARY To start empathy

Ashoka Changemaker Schools prioritize empathy and changemaking as student outcomes. Through innovations in school curricula, culture, and systems, these schools are pioneering how education can cultivate children as changemakers. Ashoka is identifying, selecting, and collaborating with these leading schools to enhance and amplify their models and collectively identify and address the challenges to making such an education a reality for all children. By connecting Changemaker Schools with each other and the broader Ashoka network, highlighting their efforts, and distilling and broadcasting their core strategies, we seek to accelerate these schools’ leadership in transforming education. These schools have been selected based on the following criteria: 1) Alignment with the "everyone a changemaker" vision - In aspiration and practice, they cultivate all of their students as active contributors and make the development of empathy a priority across the school. 2) Innovation - They have demonstrated their ability and willingness to develop and test new ideas, rather than just following established norms. 3) Influence - They seek to create change beyond their own schools and have the authority, reputation, and relevance needed to persuade others to follow their lead. 4) Team of changemakers - There is a change team comprised of teachers, administrators, parents, students and/or others who are entrepreneurial, collegial and ethical and are bringing empathy and changemaking to life in the school and beyond.

Mavens Mavens are media industry thought leaders, such as publishers, editors, writers, and journalists - people whose business it is to help society understand the world. We select and engage them based on their desire to help their audiences understand the new framework of a world governed by constant change. Some are independent writers, but most are influential leaders of media companies where we engage a team of people who see the importance of sharing this framework. We engage the teams in ideas exchange, not solely media content, and connect them to our network in ways that help them find and share stories about how the world is changing and how individuals are responding to change. Through this strategy we are also helping to position mavens as thought leaders, leaders in the media sector, and those who help society make sense of a rapidly changing world. Ashoka is not in the position to tell these stories, but mavens are. We look to work with mavens who are: 1) INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING HOW THE WORLD WORKS and in helping others understand this. 2) UNDERSTAND THE “EVERYONE A CHANGEMAKER” ETHOS and its significance in today’s world. 3) Have substantial influence or can elevate their influence by sharing these stories. 4) Have high ethical fiber and social and emotional intelligence. 5) Are in an ongoing AND FREQUENT DIALOGUE with the public.

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“We must have a revolution so that all young people grasp empathy and practice it. This is the most fundamental revolution that we have to get through.” Bill Drayton

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In the first 3 years of the initiative in the U.S., we have cultivated a powerful community around the vision. The vision and network are empowering the work of each member, and vice versa, each member is making the vision and network more powerful. Specifically, we have:

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IMPACT

ACHIEVEMENTS & IMPACT TO DATE

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Built a team of leading schools with a shared identity of pioneers in a major societal framework change around empathy and equipped them with a framework, network, and tools to augment their impact. We have 60 U.S. elementary schools already committed and engaged plus more in the pipeline and a global network getting started around them.

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Found and supported 21 new Ashoka Fellows in the U.S. who are creating more empathic systems in society and engaged new and existing Ashoka Fellows in collaboratively advancing the Start Empathy vision.

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With leading schools, innovators, and media influencers and partners, seeded a magnetic conversation in the education field and beyond about empathy and changemaking. Through media partnerships, content distribution channels, events, and tools, we have reached millions—and we have moved from push to pull.

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Engaged key partners for the early majority adoption, from the range of industry changers like the LEGO Foundation and Google to key education schools and others. Raised nearly $15 million in total global funding Began the globalization of this work, with staff teams in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America currently expanding the “triggering community” globally. Injected this vision into other Ashoka programs breaking down internal walls, finding the synergies and thus leveraging our own efforts in an integrated way.

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IMPACT

1 Built a team of leading schools with a shared identity of pioneers in a major societal framework change around empathy and equipped them with a framework, network, and tools to augment their impact.

THE NETWORK OF ASHOKA CHANGEMAKER SCHOOLS IN THE US 60 schools: 16 charter, 12 private and 32 public

Now starting to become a global network As of August 2014, we have also selected schools outside the US: 6 in Ireland, 4 in Belgium, 3 in Turkey, 2 in Nigeria, 3 in Senegal, 4 in Ghana, 4 in Uganda, 5 in Kenya, and 5 in the UK

· Ashoka’s Changemaker Schools Network launched and 60 schools with change teams identified, selected, supported, and networked · 10+ Changemaker Schools positioned on national stages · A toolkit developed with lessons for teachers 18

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ZOOM IN: SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT In the words of the principal Carolyne Albert-Garvey “Thank you for believing in me … thank you for selecting our school, thank you for your support … and everything else! This work with Ashoka has inspired me at a spiritual level to continue the work for social change in our world one kid leader at a time” "Being a Changemaker School means that empathy is always top of mind. Awareness skills are a big piece of this for our work with young children, but once they learn to notice problems and to listen, we want to equip children to take action. Ashoka has shown us what empathy in action really looks like, and helps us promote it at Maury Elementary.”

Maury Elementary, public school in Washington, D.C. Maury was a DCPS “failing school” until Principal Carolyne Albert-Garvey took the helm six years ago and started turning things around. Now it is a highly desirable school among D.C. parents, and the Washington Post just recognized Carolyne in 2014 as one of the Washington area’s top 18 principals. Nominated by Ashoka Fellow Ben Powell, who is a Maury parent, we selected and began engaging Maury as a Changemaker School in early 2013. Maury now explicitly talks about their work in terms of empathy and changemaking, proudly displaying the Start Empathy banner in their main corridor. They started Roots of Empathy (program created by Ashoka Fellow Mary Gordon) and a Parenting Changemakers group (led by Ben) among other efforts to advance these ideas in the school and spread them beyond.

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In the words of parent Maureen Shove-Brown

“A quick story…Last night Brighid and I walked our dogs to the park. She was holding my hand on the way back and says, ‘Mommy, do you know why I am holding your hand?’ I replied, ‘Why are you holding my hand, Brighid?’ She said, ‘Empathy, Mommy.’ I just thought that was the sweetest, most adorable thing. Honestly, a THREE-yearold saying the word ‘empathy’ and learning about it in school?!?  I think Maury rocks.”

We featured Maury Elementary in the Start Empathy video last year. And just a few weeks ago, the IB schools network reached out to Ashoka to ask permission to use the video in their worldwide teacher training (International Baccalaureate has a global network of 3804 schools in 147 countries).

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DCPS recently heard of Maury’s Start Empathy work and reached out to Carolyne to learn more about how these efforts can support teacher effectiveness. Maury Elementary in the front page of the Washington Post featuring Ashoka Fellow Mary Gordon’s program, Roots of Empathy: “Program brings babies into classes at 5 D.C. schools to help teach students empathy”

Ashoka’s value We didn’t turn around the school. That community did, led by its principal. We didn’t create the programs; Ashoka Fellows like Ben Powell, as a parent, and Mary Gordon, with Roots of Empathy, have been critical with the how-to’s to transform those classrooms. What Ashoka has done is to connect the network around a shared vision, strengthen the identity of each player as a powerful innovator in this mindshift, and shine a light on where models are already proving the transformation so that others can see the way forward. We are using the jiujitsu strategy of leveraging others’ strengths to pull the fewest moves that trigger the widespread adoption. Imagine what is happening with Maury happening with all of the other U.S. and global changemaker schools. It has already started.

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IMPACT

2 Found and supported 21 new Ashoka Fellows in the U.S. who are creating more empathic systems in society and engaged new and existing Ashoka Fellows in collaboratively advancing the Start Empathy vision. · 21 new Ashoka Fellows changing patterns in 7 different fields · 46 Ashoka Fellows overall engaged in supporting the movement · 8 as active ambassadors and co-creators · All U.S. Ashoka Empathy Fellows spotlighted in national (and/or international) media

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Newly elected Ashoka Empathy Fellows

Mike O’Brien: iMentor

Mike O’Brien is working to increase the capacity of public high schools in the United States to provide students with personal support that prepares them for college. iMentor’s programs provide an innovative human capital solution for schools by enlisting the vast array of experienced and caring adults within a community to serve as mentors who help students develop critical skills linked to college success.

Tomás Alvarez: Beats Rhymes & Life

Tomás Alvarez is making mental health and wellness services more accessible, useful, and meaningful for youth of color by integrating pop culture and community-defined strategies with proven therapy models.

Andrew Slack: The Harry Potter Alliance

By unleashing the power of popular culture, Andrew Slack is amplifying the voice of today’s fan communities and strengthening the effectiveness of nonprofits and educators.

Ellen Moir: New Teacher Center

Ellen Moir is improving learning for students—and especially underserved students—in America by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers. She does so by building the world’s first corps of professional education mentors composed of expert teachers.

Cristi Hegranes: Global Press Institute

Cristi Hegranes seeks to develop a new, better quality, and more sustainable model of international journalism that is rooted in the perspective of local communities – and especially women from those communities.

Dana Mortenson: World Savvy

Dana Mortenson is preparing students for citizenship and leadership in the 21st century by closing the global competency gap within K-12 education in the United States.

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Andrew Mangino: The Future Project

Bill Jackson: GreatSchools

Emily May: Hollaback!

Sarah Hemminger: Incentive Mentoring Program

Andrew Mangino is introducing a new position into the American education system: full-time Dream Directors, tasked with helping students to name whatever it is that they are passionate about and to design “Future Projects” to bring those passions to life. 

Emily May is making street harassment as culturally unacceptable as sexual harassment in the workplace by naming and raising visibility of the problem and establishing systems and accessible tools to effectively report and address it.

Ai-jen Poo: National Domestic Workers Alliance

Ai-jen Poo is building a new movement for one of the most excluded sectors of the American service industry, domestic care workers, that aligns them with the needs and demands of today’s economy while preserving and promoting dignity in their relationships.

Jeff Edmondson: Strive Together

Jeff Edmondson is uniting local leaders within education, business, non-profit, government, civic, and philanthropic sectors behind a common vision and measurable set of goals, and supplying them with the tools, infrastructure, and peer community they need to improve educational outcomes for children from cradle to career.

Philipp Schmidt: Peer 2 Peer University

Philipp Schmidt is infusing participatory learning into the open education space and building the first-ever opensource university.

Pam Cantor: Turnaround for Children

Pam Cantor is working to reengineer public schools to respond to the recurring challenges to teaching and learning that stem from the traumatic impact of poverty.

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Bill Jackson created a platform to help parents become more involved in their children’s education. Bill’s strategy is to leverage the power of digital media to inspire and support parents to solve education-related problems, raise expectations for their children’s learning, develop education-related parenting skills, and access helpful resources online and in their community.

Sarah Hemminger is building non-traditional families in order to radically reconfigure the level of support disenfranchised students have available to them.

Kevin Kirby: Face It TOGETHER

Kevin Kirby, who has been in remission for ten years, is building the infrastructure for a chronic care model of addiction recovery that engages communities and employers alike, breaks down silos between the two, and de-stigmatizes this age-old disease.

Kendis Paris: Truckers Against Trafficking

Beginning with the trucking industry, Kendis Paris is building an anti-human trafficking movement model that could be applied across every mode of transportation in the U.S. and beyond.

Catherine Hoke: Defy Ventures

Catherine Hoke seeks to break the cycle of incarceration in the U.S. by equipping men and women with criminal histories to ‘defy the odds’ and leverage their innate entrepreneurial skills to create profitable, sustainable, legal enterprises.

Susan Sygall: Mobility International USA

Susan Sygall, who became a wheelchair rider at the age of 18, is reimagining the meaning of full citizenship for people with disabilities in the context of international development.

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David Lubell: Welcoming America

David Lubell is unlocking the full potential of communities by addressing the fears of U.S. born residents regarding the country’s fastest immigration growth rates since the early 1900s. He is helping them understand how and why the U.S. can find pride in upholding traditions of being welcoming, at community and individual levels.

David Flink: Eye to Eye

David is building a youth-powered movement designed to combat the prevailing stigmas attached to learning differences, and to equip students with the tools and sense of personal efficacy they need to self-advocate.

Scott Hartl: Expeditionary Learning

Scott Hartl is changing both what teachers teach and how they teach it, through the creation of free and open resources, including curricula, lesson plans, and video documentation drawn straight from the classroom.

“Inspired by Ashoka, we re-wrote our code of ethics [at Global Press Institute] last year to include responsible empathy. The theory being that journalists, more than almost any other profession, have a responsibility to be responsibly empathetic in the work that they’re doing. When you extract someone’s story, you have a responsibility to do that with empathy…” Cristi Hegranes

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Ashoka Fellow Andrew Slack from the Harry Potter Alliance 29

ASHOKA FELLOW EMPATHY COLLABORATORS

Ashoka Fellow Empathy Collaborators

JILL VIALET, PLAYWORKS

Cultivating safe early environments for play.

79%

of teachers said that bullying at recess has decreased

65%

said that more students have ontask behavior in the classroom

ERIC DAWSON,

PEACE FIRST Partnering with Pre-K-8 schools to build safe, effective school climates where children learn how to be engaged and active citizens.

95%

of students said that they understand how other people feel

84%

MARY GORDON, ROOTS OF EMPATHY

Bringing babies into classrooms to help students understand their feelings and the feelings of others.

39%

decreased social aggression of students

78%

increased helping behavior of students

said that they want to come to school more

“Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.” Oprah Winfrey 30

MOLLY BARKER, GIRLS ON THE RUN

Using physical and emotional training to help girls challenge the status quo and see themselves as part of a healthy, well-balanced society.

ELLEN MOIR

New Teacher Center

DINA BUCHBINDER

Deport-es para Compartir

Ellen Moir is improving learning for students—and especially underserved students—in America by accelerating the effectiveness of new teachers. She does so by building the world’s first corps of professional education mentors composed of expert teachers.

She has introduced an innovative, action-oriented education model called Deport-es para Compartir to a Mexican education system that has long struggled with passivity and rigidity. It empowers teachers from a variety of school settings to foster social and environmental awareness while also teaching values, such as teamwork and fair play.

ANDREW MANGINO

DANA MORTENSON

Andrew Mangino is introducing a new character into the American education system: fulltime Dream Directors, tasked with helping students to name whatever it is that they are passionate about and to design “Future Projects” to bring those passions to life.

Dana Mortenson is preparing students for citizenship and leadership in the 21st century by closing the global competency gap within K-12 education in the United States.

400,000

ALETA MARGOLIS The Center for Inspired Teaching

Investing in teachers to ensure schools make the most of children’s innate desire to learn; valuing students’ creativity, and intellectual curiosity as much as their academic achievement.

girls served in the US & Canada since 1996

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active councils in 46 states, and 37,000 volunteers engaged in 2010- 2011 alone

The Future Project

World Savvy

DAVID CASTRO

I-LEAD (Institute for Leadership Education, Advancement, and Development ) Transforming low-income urban neighborhoods by identifying local leaders and guiding them to earn college degrees in the place where they live.

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ZOOM IN: FELLOW ENGAGEMENT Inspired Teaching has several innovative partnerships with DC Public Schools, and Aleta opened the inaugural convening of our DC Changemaker Schools last spring with a compelling vision for an unprecedented collaboration of public, charter, and private schools shaping a new path for DC education.

In 2011, Center for Inspired Teaching launched a school in Washington, DC, to put its innovative inquiry-based instructional model in action in every classroom and to serve as a partner residency site for the Inspired Teacher Certification Program. We selected the Inspired Teaching Demonstration School as one of our first Ashoka Changemaker Schools in 2012. The school was recently named the Best Elementary School in Washington, DC in the Washington City Paper’s “Best of DC” 2014 Readers’ Poll.

Ashoka Fellow Aleta Margolis and Center for Inspired Teaching Aleta Margolis is part of the Empathy Initiative Fellow leadership group. She is the founder of Center for Inspired Teaching, an organization that is building a better school experience for students by changing the role of the teacher from information provider to Instigator of Thought. The principles of empathy and changemaking are deeply baked into her work, and like many of our Fellow collaborators, she sees the “everyone a changemaker” framework as a value-add to her own vision. Aleta has contributed to the initiative in various ways, including co-presenting on empathy with Ashoka at early childhood conferences, being a spokesperson and ambassador for the initiative, and moderating conversations at Ashoka events.

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“Ashoka’s empathy initiative is gaining momentum. And though there are still many teacher proof curricula and reform initiatives, more and more teachers are taking on the role of Instigator of Thought in the classroom and the role of changemaker in the profession. Empathy means value. If philanthropists and leaders in the education field, and in all fields, shifted their context from sympathy to empathy, we’d take a big step toward building capacity and creating lasting change.”

Aleta Margolis

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Ashoka’s value In our engagement with Fellows, Ashoka is not telling them what to do, we are not prescriptive, we trust their entrepreneurial direction and we know they know better how to create change. They are the suppliers of solutions. What we are doing is increasing demand by bringing them together in a network of peers around a shared vision, energizing them around a movement that is bigger than just their own programs, making them see themselves as part of a picture of the future where they collaborate with many others to advance their shared goals. Ashoka is the ignition force of that collaborative movement. Here are just a few ways we’ve partnered with one Fellow to help spread the word:

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Aleta has been engaged with helping other potential funders and partners understand our work.

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Center for Inspired Teaching served as a network partner for our Activating Empathy

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Aleta has collaborated with us to engage the George Mason University education

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competition, helping market the competition.

school. Through the engagement with Ashoka, the Inspired Teaching Demonstration School change team identified an opportunity to change their monthly service days, in which teachers would identify service projects for students, to Changemaker Days, where teachers instead facilitate students to put empathy into action. Students as early as pre-school identify a problem they want to address as a class and design a solution to implement.

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Ashoka provided an opportunity for the Inspired Teaching Demonstration School to share the Changemaker Days idea and other of their strategies at EduCon, a convening of innovative educators in Philadelphia, where they co-presented with Ashoka in 2013. The session on empathy and changemaking was one of the most highly attended of the conference and had a deep effect on the school team, positioning them as leaders in the field. It also sparked an interest among participants to provide changemaker professional development opportunities for teachers. Ashoka returned to EduCon in 2014, this time with four Changemaker Schools presenting together.

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The Inspired Teacher Certification Program has started recruiting “changemakers” to become Inspired Teaching Fellows and excellent new educators. Inspired Teaching Demonstration School Principal Zoe Duskin participated in a panel we organized with Ashoka Fellows Eric Dawson and George Askew, among others, to share the empathy and changemaking vision of education with a community of local bloggers in DC.

8 9 10 Aleta is increasingly playing a leadership role nationally and participated in the Ashoka U Exchange at her alma mater Brown University.

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We connected Inspired Teaching with Ashoka Fellow Ellen Moir’s New Teacher Symposium in California, where Zoe Duskin served as a presenter. The Inspired Teaching Demonstration School’s executive director, Deborah Dantzler Williams, served as a panelist to help us select new Changemaker Schools. The Inspired Teaching Demonstration School is collaborating with us on a school diagnostic tool we are building in partnership with Google. The school has hosted a crew to film hours of classroom techniques that will be the primary video content of the tool.​

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IMPACT

3 With leading schools, innovators, and media influencers and partners, seeded a magnetic conversation in the education field and beyond about empathy and changemaking.

MEDIA ENGAGED Some of our media allies and partners include the following individuals and companies. As independent journalists, none of the individuals are formally associated with Ashoka but are engaged with our community.

David Bornstein

Arianna Huffington

Jonathan Alter

Roman Krznaric

· 16 media influencers engaged in conversation about “everyone a changemaker” and “every child must master empathy” · 18 media/distribution partnerships · 15 education organization/university partnerships · Empathy on the agenda at 18+ national convenings 36

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ZOOM IN: MAVEN ENGAGEMENT Arianna Huffington

“Bill Drayton emphasizes that empathy is an increasingly important resource for dealing with the exponential rate of change we are experiencing. ‘The speed at which the future comes upon us—faster and faster—the kaleidoscope of constant change contexts,’ he says, ‘requires the foundational skill of cognitive empathy.’”

Arianna Huffington in her newly released book, Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder

David Brooks in The New York Times Arianna Huffington and David Brooks on stage at Aspen Ideas Festival 2013

“If you are trying to pass legislation, you staff your administration with political operatives. But if you are trying to change the discussion and mobilize the country, you hire and promote social entrepreneurs, people from Ashoka…”

Arianna replies to a comment of David Brooks on stage:

January 30, 2014

“So given the unmistakable health benefits of empathy and specifically putting empathy into action, how do we strengthen it? And how do we pass it on? Parents put a lot of time into thinking about how to pass on a better material life to their children, but it’s just as important to focus on passing down a rich capacity for compassion. This is especially true in our modern world”. 38

“The role of the human is not to be dispassionate, depersonalized or neutral. It is precisely the emotive traits that are rewarded: the voracious lust for understanding, the enthusiasm for work, the ability to grasp the gist, the empathetic sensitivity to what will attract attention and linger in the mind.” February 3, 2014

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One of the most popular articles on Edutopia

THE ASHOKA FORBES CHANNEL Ashoka has a partnership with Forbes in which we own a “vertical” on topics related to social entrepreneurship and social innovation. We produce the content for that space on an average of 3 posts a week.  

87+ posts produced and published about “empathy” Among the 5 most read, 3 are “empathy” posts, with readership between 30k-50k

“Back-to-school offers an ideal time to establish that your school or classroom prioritizes the active development of empathy—that you’ll take a stand for it. A terrific starting point is offered by Ashoka, a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging social innovation around the world. Their Start Empathy initiative shares research, case studies and inspirational stories, and is building a network of Changemaker Schools committed to building empathic, encouraging environments at the elementary level. They’ve developed a road map for navigating a course to empathy—suitable for any age.” Homa Tavangar

 

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EVENTS

START EMPATHY WEBSITE

Start Empathy at EduCon in 2013 and 2014

Start Empathy at SXSWedu 2014

Our website has had over 450k visitors in its first two years, always has fresh content and serves as a resource center for the network.

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EMPATHY TOOLKIT In the first year of the initiative, we mapped the global Ashoka Fellow community to identify design principles around cultivating empathy. Building on those principles, we developed a Start Empathy Roadmap and Toolkit for educators. The Roadmap and Toolkit further draws on the individual and aggregate insights and strategies from Fellows, Changemaker Schools and other allies, to provide starter strategies for empathy cultivation that teachers can try in their classrooms.

A Toolkit for Promoting Empathy in Schools

Back-ups scheduled for March 31, 2013

Over 3K direct downloads of our free toolkit for promoting empathy in schools in its first year. 44

Presented by: Ashoka | www.ashoka.org | www.startempathy.org

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IMPACT

4 Engaged key partners for the early majority adoption, from the range of industry changers like the LEGO Foundation and Google to key education schools.

The LEGO Foundation The LEGO Foundation and Ashoka teamed up to transform the way the world learns. In April 2014, the Re-imagine Learning Challenge was launched as part of this new partnership at the LEGO IDEA Conference in Billund, Denmark.

“Re-imagining learning requires breaking out of traditional models and institutions. It requires a creative, playful, and imaginative approach to take on the challenge of transforming learning so that children are equipped to thrive and lead as the builders of tomorrow. The LEGO Foundation is excited to start a joint endeavor with Ashoka to identify and support the most promising, high impact, scalable solutions from social entrepreneurs around the world that spearhead this change. These social entrepreneurs drive innovation in play and learning while providing us with a unique network and a solid knowledge-base that we can learn from. They are key partners in achieving our goal: to build a future in which learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged and life-long learners.” Mirjam Schöning LEGO Foundation Global Head of Programs and Partnerships

THE LEGO FOUNDATION THE LEGO FOUNDATION CHANGEMAKERS.COM IDEA CONFERENCE 2014 CHALLENGE 16 Ashoka Fellows attended the 2014 IDEA Conference This challenge saw a volume of traffic three times that of comparable challenges, with 632 entries from around the world.

in Billund, Denmark. Bill Drayton helped to set the stage for the event by connecting playful learning to the needs of the 21st century, including empathy and changemaking. In another keynote, Tony Wagner also stressed the need for creativity, innovation, and empathy in 21st century education.

5 Ashoka Fellows on the stage at the LEGO Idea conference 2014, Denmark

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Google

Education schools engaged We have begun engaging with several education schools as potential multipliers. For example, Tulane University, a Changemaker Campus, began a research project with a few of our Changemaker Schools in 2013, and now Tulane and Lusher Elementary are collaborating on their own to host panels on empathy with teachers from across the New Orleans area.

We collaborated with Google to create a free open online course and diagnostic tool, which will reach thousands of educators and ignite them to promote empathy and innovation into their classrooms, empowering a future generation of leaders.

The Making Caring Common Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

Graduate School of Education at George Mason University

Education Studies Program at Middlebury College

Ashoka organized a visit for CARE Bears, a group of students at PS 89 (a Changemaker School in NYC), to the Google Headquarters in NYC for volunteer day. These students did a presentation to some Google staff members about why/how their school is cultivating changemakers and what that has meant for them and their experience. Then the Google staff members led the students through a Design Thinking process.

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College of Education at the University of Missouri

Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University

Teacher Preparation and Certification Program at Tulane University

Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University

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Independent adoption Some examples of efforts, which are fully led by others

The Empathy Library Started by Ashoka partner Roman Krznaricic

EMPATHEDIA Started by Start Empathy contributor Emily Cherkin, carries the tagline “where Empathy meets Media”

Education Changemakers: Inspiring, equipping, supporting and connecting education leaders.

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The David & Lucile Packard Foundation

StiR Education

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IMPACT

5 Raised nearly $15 million in total global funding.

“Being involved with Ashoka has set a high bar for the rest of philanthropy that we get involved with because I can see that these are the people who are driving true change. Most important about what Ashoka is doing is that they make people believe that change is possible. That belief can go viral.” Anne Wojcicki, founder and CEO of 23andMe and co-founder of the Brin Wojcicki Foundation.

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THE NEXT 5 YEARS

GOALS & STRATEGY

3 THE NEXT 5 YEARS

“Empathy without action is meaningless. Action without empathy is heartless. Together they are essential.” Eric Dawson Ashoka Fellow

Approach As discussed above, our approach is to use the least amount of effort to create the greatest impact (the “jiujitsu” strategy). We cannot reach every child ourselves, but by activating a carefully selected network of collaborators, we can set in motion an irreversible movement toward a future where everyone understands that empathy is as essential to a child’s success as literacy. This means we focus our limited resources in a targeted, disciplined way to set in motion a process that drives uptake of the framework we seek to advance.

Where We Are We have been building a carefully selected team (triggering community) of leading social entrepreneurs, schools, and mavens to be the leaders in accelerating a new societal understanding of the critical role of empathy in a rapidly changing world, and particularly as the foundational skill for children to grow up to thrive in this world (“the framework”). Through the process of selection, followed by value-add, meaningful engagement, we have been nurturing across

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this team a shared understanding of and commitment to the framework and to creating opportunities to influence the rest of society toward it. And by sharing the framework, insights and strategies of this community through strategic media partnerships and communications, we’ve influenced many others and invited everyone to create their own place in this movement.

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Goals for the Next 5 Years In the next 5 years, we must lead this team toward exponential impact, reaching new networks and catalyzing uptake of the framework that empathy is critical for success in a world where everyone must be a changemaker. This means we must:

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Create a contagion effect. We’re already seeing the power of the triggering community to inspire and influence others. We’re now organizing to accelerate this effect, such that the movement becomes self-multiplying.

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Ensure the movement is irreversible. We must plan toward working Ashoka out of the equation. In five years, we should see a sustainable demand for empathy, with the framework being independently adopted by others, the strategies and insights of the network being independently replicated, and more and more systemic supports emerging in the field.

Strategy To reach these goals, we will weave together the community in empowering ways, deepening individual and collective understanding of the framework and, together, identify and mobilize around carefully selected “trigger opportunities” with high likelihood to drive uptake of the framework.

What are trigger opportunities? Opportunities of strategic reach and visibility where we can position Fellows, Changemaker Schools and Mavens to discuss their work and ideas in the context of the shared framework. We will look for three types of opportunities: partnerships, events, and media. These opportunities should accomplish three goals: 1. Deepen the community’s understanding of and engagement with the framework 2. Embolden the community and position their leadership in the field 3. Catalyze the spread and uptake of the framework

“Empathy is a learned skill like anything else, and I think that diminishing opportunities for kids to play means that there is a diminishing opportunity for them to learn and practice the skills of empathy.” Jill Vialet Ashoka Fellow

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THE NEXT 5 YEARS PLAN

Plan Summary

Plan Summary Over the last three years, we have been carefully selecting our Empathy “team,” the triggering community that will help lead the framework change. This was the first stage of the tipping point strategy. We have selected over 20 new Ashoka Fellows with ideas that are creating more empathic systems in society, primarily in education but also in the fields of civic participation, law, disabilities, and others. We have engaged close to 50 U.S. Ashoka Fellows in the initiative, through distilling the empathy insights from their work, inviting them to share empathy cultivation strategies for distribution to educators, writing about or inviting them to write about those insights and strategies, engaging them to help select the schools we work with, connecting them with mavens, and more. We have engaged 8 Fellows more deeply as co-creators and ambassadors of this work. In the next stage, we need to continue finding new entrepreneurs in this space and distilling and spreading their insights, engage our co-creator Fellows more systematically in this collaborative initiative, and strategically connect Fellows with the rest of the triggering community in ways that advance our goals. We have selected 60 elementary schools across the country as Ashoka Changemaker Schools, who are showing what education looks like when it prioritizes empathy and changemaking and helping us spread the framework to other educators and influencers. We have begun to amplify their work and connect them with each other to share and learn. We have also begun to position them together at education events to discuss their vision and strategies for educating empathic changemakers.

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In the next stage, we must expand the network to middle and high schools, in collaboration with Ashoka’s Youth Venture program, which has the content expertise on helping young people translate empathy into action. We also need to support the schools to spread the framework within their own spheres of influence and connect them with other schools, Fellows and mavens to lift the conversation from one about a small group of leading schools to why this framework is important for all schools. And we have engaged 16 thought leaders in the media and publishing industry around the ideas of an everyone a changemaker world and why that requires empathy. We believe we actually need about 30 mavens in the U.S., but due to a longer internal learning curve on what these relationships entail, we have not yet reached our goal of 30 in the first three years of the initiative. In the next stage, we must continue to develop the existing relationships and add new ones to reach our goal of 30, strategically expose the mavens to the ideas of the schools and Fellows, and leverage the mavens’ media platforms to drive public conversation around the framework. Although the first stage has been focused on selecting the team, we also have been piloting engagement strategies to identify those strategies we believe will have the highest impact toward our long-term goal. It is based on those learnings and where we see impact occurring that we have designed the strategy for the next stage of catalyzing contagion. While we will continue to engage the different constituent groups (Fellows, Changemaker Schools, Mavens) in unique ways, we can no longer organize around the three groups independently. The strategy for the next stage requires organizing around the opportunities to connect dots across the community that will feed momentum.

1 2 3

Strengthen the Empathy Team/Triggering Community For the collaborative effort to work, in this next phase, we must continue to invest in developing the highest quality of individual engagement of our team members, in ways that create clear mutual value and deepen our collective understanding of the framework.

Mobilize the Team Around Key Trigger Opportunities

Lead Outputs: · 30 new Fellows in gap areas · 14 new mavens · 30-50 new Changemaker Schools · 80% of core Empathy Team active in network and trigger opportunities

Lead Outputs:

We have a team; now we need to put them on the field. We will create opportunities for Fellows, Changemaker Schools, and Mavens to be on the same “stages” (at events, in the media, with strategic partners) engaging people not only in their individual work, but also with the shared empathy framework.

· 25 prominent national Catalyst Partnerships representing at least 10 sectors

Communicate for Impact

Lead Outputs:

We need to ensure that we make the most, from a communications standpoint, of all movement-building activities of the team and community and that we are distilling and disseminating the collective knowledge of the network.

· 2000 influencers reached through targeted communication strategies

· 75-100 Catalyst Conversations on national stages and media platforms

· 20 new media partnerships

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1

Strengthen the Empathy Team/Triggering Community

For the collaborative effort to work, in this next phase, we must continue to invest in developing the highest quality of individual engagement of our team members, in ways that create clear mutual value and deepen our collective understanding of the framework.

What we seek to accomplish:

Lead Outputs:

· Fill gaps in the network to ensure a fully representative team and set of insights

· 30 new Fellows in gap areas

· Build connections across the network that deepen the network’s engagement with the shared framework · Position leadership of the team members locally, nationally, and globally

How we will do it: · Find new Fellows, Changemaker Schools, and Mavens in areas (geography, issue area, etc.) where the network is weaker and expand Changemaker School strategy to middle and high schools

· 14 new mavens · 30-50 new Changemaker Schools (some additional elementary plus 30 middle and high schools) · 80% of core Empathy Team active in network and trigger opportunities

Other Outputs: Engagement of US network with 10 other countries

· Put team members on strategic stages individually and together discussing their work in the context of the framework · Mobilize sub-teams around different geographies, sectors, and challenges of strategic importance · Support team members to catalyze their own networks to adopt the framework

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Mobilize the Team Around Key Trigger Opportunities (The “Plays”)

We have a team; now we need to put them on the field. We will create opportunities for Fellows, Changemaker Schools, and Mavens to be on the same “stages” (at events, in the media, with strategic partners) engaging people not only in their individual work, but also with the shared empathy framework.

What we seek to accomplish:

Lead Outputs:

· Multiply impact of our current networks and accelerate the rate of the tipping process

· 25 prominent national Catalyst Partnerships representing at least 10 sectors

· Reach new networks with the framework, inspire new champions

· 75-100 Catalyst Conversations on national stages and media platforms

How we will do it: · With the triggering community, identify top opportunities that meet the criteria · Leveraging interests and assets of the team, cultivate a set of Catalyst Partners · Position the team in a set of Catalyst Conversations

Other Outputs: · 100 local partnerships and conversations driven by network

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Communicate For Impact

We need to ensure that we make the most, from a communications standpoint, of all movement-building activities of the team and community and that we are distilling and disseminating the collective knowledge of the network.

What we seek to accomplish:

Lead Outputs:

· Make team feel like a team and invest in shared outcomes

· 2000 influencers reached through targeted communication strategies

· Reach influencers with the framework

· 20 new media partnerships

· Create sense of inevitability

Other Outputs:

How we will do it:

· 5000+ schools apply diagnostic tool · 10,000+ downloads of Roadmap and Toolkit

· Leverage collective communications assets of the team and network by developing mechanisms for regular communications across the team and beyond to their networks · Develop more media and communications partnerships to disseminate network knowledge · Create targeted content for influencers in key communities (e.g. parents, policymakers, etc.) · Have toolbox of “off-the-shelf” transactional opportunities for low-touch engagement and/or to gauge strategic partnership potential

Catalyst Partners: prominent partners who share the vision and can collaborate with our team to penetrate the field and/or multiply impact Catalyst Conversations: convenings and media opportunities of strategic visibility and reach

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“What defines and DIFFERENTIATES Georgetown Day School? We excel—and in fact I believe we lead—in producing changemakers. We are working to foster this capacity so that GDS students and alumni will be able to meaningfully impact a rapidly changing world. A crucial part of achieving this plan is participating in Ashoka Changemaker Schools Network, allowing us to learn from other schools’ best practices in changemaker education.”

This work would not be possible without the generous support of the

Georgetown Day Head of School Russell Shaw

and many others, including: The LEGO Foundation The Jenesis Group The Brin Wojcicki Foundation The David & Lucile Packard Foundation The Poses Family Foundation Frey Charitable Foundation Tides Foundation Susan Crown Exchange

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Join Us!

Presented by: Ashoka | www.ashoka.org | www.startempathy.org For more information, contact [email protected]

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