Problem Statement:

Many individuals and organizations that have disruptive ideas often lack the capacity, skills, or resources to make them reality.

Target Group:

Minneapolis local disrupters and early stage change agents.

Proposed Solution:

Shape Change (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx5QYgNuw14jbEJoRzhmVC1WNHM/view?resourcekey=0-YqSmLQWdRGZ09mx7okN1wg) offers Global Shapers a toolkit to work with early stage change agents who are looking to make a social change in the world. The Shape Change process consists of tools which help the team understand what their client does, how they work, what their vision is, identify the main challenge and provide clarity or even potential solutions. 

Shape Change seeks to scale a framework that easily aligns the time, talent, and resources of any Global Shapers Hub to create impactful project and meaningful partnerships between the Hubs and their client organizations.

Hub Activities:

Guiding Principles:

• Use systems thinking to tap our community’s collective genius.


• Seek root causes and root solutions that are a net gain and never escalate other problems.


• Remain disruptive, knowing solutions emerge from new paradigms, not those that created the problems. 


• Maximize opportunities to weave the Global Shapers network locally and globally. 


• Stay grounded in people and values.

This framework is currently used by the Minneapolis Global Shaper Hub to partner with local individuals and organizations that have disruptive ideas but lack the capacity, skills, or resources to make them reality.

If formalized and refined, this framework could be easily extended to any Hub - providing actionable exercises and tools to map the skills, expertise, and resources they can use to accelerate solutions existing in their communities. Shape Change also provides guidance and processes to find potential partners, identify their strategic needs, align those needs to Shaper resources, and scope projects effectively. The methodology would be particularly useful to new hubs as they define their strengths and choose their first projects.

Short & Long-Term Goals/Results:

The broad collection of the skills, expertise, and resources of the Global Shapers would also allow the Hub in Sacramento to connect with those in Shanghai, Stockholm, or Sydney to collaborate and learn – allowing all Hubs to tap the collective knowledge of the Shaper network and truly leverage its potential.

Available Metrics:

To date, the Minneapolis Hub has worked with about 30 organizations or individuals to scale their impact using our Shape Change framework.

Collaborators: