Longing to leave academia and be an agent of social change?

One thing that’s been obvious to me since I started this project was how much the academics I’m in touch with having a longing to be relevant and useful in the world. So many of us have gone into higher education because we thought the world needed more great ideas, or because teaching was a way of creating social change, or because we ourselves wanted to understand the world’s problems better before trying to tackle them.

But when the realities of academic life sink in–that there is little time for activism when funding proposals need to be written, little time to engage students meaningfully when you’re limited to 50 minutes a week of dull curriculum–ambitions to change the world get thwarted. But that longing to make a social contribution doesn’t go away. It just gets buried.

For those who do dream of/think about/consider leaving academia, it’s often that call to be useful in the world that leads the way. Working in isolation on research papers that no one will read is the antithesis, for many, of making a social contribution. As a result, I hear from clients and blog readers who are looking for the right kind of work where they can make an impact (right now, actually, I’m working with two different U.S. clients who are applying for really cool sounding jobs that are precisely in the field of knowledge mobilization, even though that phrase isn’t explicitly used in the job ads).

Some people look to the government (local, provincial/state, federal) to do that kind of work. Others look to think tanks. Some try entrepreneurship. And there are gobs of grassroots nonprofits and highflying NGOs, too. (NB: If you’re Canadian and are interested in this kind of work, check out CharityVillage.com. If you’re American, try out Idealist.org. And if you’re not from North America, please let me know of any resources that serve as clearinghouses for jobs available in the non-profit sector).

Lately, I’ve been hearing more and more about two really interesting areas for people who want to have and make an impact. One is “social innovation” or “social entrepreneurship.” The other is “knowledge mobilization.” Here in Toronto, we have something called the Centre for Social Innovation, an incredible (and incredibly beautiful) shared workspace for over 180 different organizations, each of them committed to creating positive social change. We’re not talking about armchair activists, here–we’re talking about organizations like Bikes Without Borders, the Pembina Institute, and the David Suzuki Foundation. These are the people who put their money where their mouth is and make change happen. They are, in the parlance I am only now learning, change agents.

Social entrepreneurs, I have also learned, are entrepreneurs who are interested in makign a profit, sure–but doing so through social innovation. Their work lies not only in making money, but in creating value like trust, connections, community, capacity-building, and so forth. The first time I’d heard the phrase social entrepreneur was from someone I met at Congress who runs this company.

This brings me to this thing called knowledge mobilization. The more people I talk to about this, the more I learn that either you work in a sector where knowledge mobilization (or knowledge transfer, knowledge exchange, and apparently endless variations on the same) is a given, or you’ve never heard of this crazy thing. When I was at Congress, though, and heard knowledge mobilization defined as “making what we know ready for service or action to build value,” my ears pricked up. How appealing this would be, I thought, to so many of the academics I’m in touch with who have a longing to take their knowledge and research and make it meaningful and useful to the world.

Social innovation and knowledge mobilization are fields that need people who understand the ins and outs of research, but who are interested in applying it to the world. And that might be you. There is so much research that has already been done that could make a difference–but instead, it sits in journals, not being, well, mobilized. Maybe you are someone who could work with others to bring that research to life.

Now, if you’re getting excited about this as a possible career trajectory for yourself, that’s awesome. But I’m going to link to kind of a downer of an article about social entrepreneurship. The only reason why I’m doing that, though, is because although the piece complains that a lot of people are excluded from the “social entrepreneurship club” (and that includes people who don’t have M.B.A.s), the piece (and the comments section) includes a litany of organizations who do this kind of work. It could be a starting place for those who are interested in researching the people and places who have the money to create social change (and perhaps some organizations to avoid). And seriously, in my world, not having an M.B.A. means nothing. With the right networking, the right resume and an endless source of persistence, a Ph.D. can absolutely be leveraged where you’d assume an M.B.A. would be preferred. M’kay? The link to the piece is here.

Have you thought about the path of social innovation? What kinds of foundations or organizations have you researched that appeal to your social justice instincts? Would you ever consider social entrepreneurship for yourself?

Related posts:

1. PhD research translated into private sector work
2. Idealist.org comes to Canadian shores
3. Is the longing to be useful just a longing to sell out?
4. Connecting with other academic leavers (thank you, Facebook!)
5. Looking for a flexible work schedule? You can find it–or create it.

Tagged as: career change, entrepreneurship, jobs, MBA, social change